On nonlinear axisymmetric equilibria in the magnetohydrodynamic approximation

The second order elliptic differential equation which describes the static equilibrium of an axisymmetric ideally conducting plasma toroid, in the magnetohydrodynamic approximation, may be transformed into an equivalent equation which admits at least one class of exact analytic solutions for which the original equation is essentially nonlinear. Necessary and sufficient conditions are given for the existence of systems in this category having closed toroidal flux surfaces and a result is proved which gives some insight into the mathematics by which the spatial variation of the hydrodynamic pressure can be represented by families of nested closed curves.