Relaxation of toroidal discharges

A review is conducted of a theory, reported by Taylor (1974), which accounts for a very wide range of phenomena occurring in toroidal discharges, including the relaxation of a discharge into a stable quiescent state which takes place after the initial violently unstable phase, during which the plasma is formed. In this theory the plasma is regarded as a conducting viscous fluid enclosed in a perfectly conducting toroidal vessel. The theory is based on the concept of configurations of minimum energy subject to appropriate constraints.