Magnetic Fields with Precise Quasisymmetry for Plasma Confinement

Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 035001 (2022)https://ireap.umd.edu/10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.0350012022Journal ArticlePlasma, Accelerator, and Nuclear Physics

Quasisymmetry is an unusual symmetry that can be present in toroidal magnetic fields, enabling the confinement of charged particles and plasma. Here it is shown that both quasiaxisymmetry and quasihelical symmetry can be achieved to a much higher precision than previously thought over a significant volume, resulting in exceptional confinement. For a 1 Tesla mean field far from axisymmetry (vacuum rotational transform >0.4), symmetry-breaking mode amplitudes throughout a volume of aspect ratio 6 can be made as small as the typical ∼50 μT geomagnetic field.