Tailoring steep density profile with unstable points
Abstract
The mesoscopic properties of a plasma in a cylindrical magnetic field are investigated from the view point of test-particle dynamics. When the system has enough time and spatial symmetries, a Hamiltonian of a test particle is completely integrable and can be reduced to a single degree of freedom Hamiltonian for each initial state. The reduced Hamiltonian sometimes has unstable fixed points (saddle points) and associated separatrices. To choose among available dynamically compatible equilibrium states of the one particle density function of these systems we use a maximum entropy principle and discuss how the unstable fixed points affect the density profile or a local pressure gradient, and are able to create a steep profile that improves plasma confinement.
- Publication:
-
Physics Letters A
- Pub Date:
- January 2019
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.physleta.2018.09.014
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1611.00063
- Bibcode:
- 2019PhLA..383...35O
- Keywords:
-
- Classical statistical physics;
- Plasma magnetic confinement;
- Classical mechanics;
- Chaotic dynamics;
- Physics - Plasma Physics;
- Nonlinear Sciences - Chaotic Dynamics
- E-Print:
- 6 pages, 5 figures, some content was added, some other removed in order to clarify the scope of the paper