Local Stellarator Equilibrium Model

Extensive calculations of ballooning and drift waves spectrums in asymmetric toroidal configurations (e.g. stellarators) to appreciate the role of magnetic geometry and profile variations are usually are usually prohibitive as the evaluation of the magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) equilibrium is in itself a non-trivial problem. Although simple analytical MHD model equilibria do exist for tokamak configurations, their stellarator counterparts are usually crude or very approximate. In order to make more extensive stability calculations (of both ideal ballooning and drift-type modes), a technique for generating three-dimensional magneto-static equilibria, localized to a magnetic surface, has been developed. The technique allows one to easily manipulate various 3-D shaping and profile effects on a magnetic surface avoiding the need to recompute an entire three dimensional solution of the equilibrium. The model equilibrium has been implemented into existing ideal MHD ballooning and drift wave numerical codes. Marginal ballooning stability diagrams and drift wave calculations will be reported.