Confirmation of the topology of the Wendelstein 7-X magnetic field to better than 1:100,000

The Wendelstein 7-X Team

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101 Scopus citations

Abstract

Fusion energy research has in the past 40 years focused primarily on the tokamak concept, but recent advances in plasma theory and computational power have led to renewed interest in stellarators. The largest and most sophisticated stellarator in the world, Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), has just started operation, with the aim to show that the earlier weaknesses of this concept have been addressed successfully, and that the intrinsic advantages of the concept persist, also at plasma parameters approaching those of a future fusion power plant. Here we show the first physics results, obtained before plasma operation: that the carefully tailored topology of nested magnetic surfaces needed for good confinement is realized, and that the measured deviations are smaller than one part in 100,000. This is a significant step forward in stellarator research, since it shows that the complicated and delicate magnetic topology can be created and verified with the required accuracy.

Original languageEnglish
Article number13493
JournalNature Communications
Volume7
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 30 2016

Funding

This work has been carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium and has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2014-2018 under grant agreement No 633053. The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission. S.L. acknowledges support from US DOE grant DE-AC02-09CH11466. T.S.P. thanks U. Nielsen and K. Søndergaard Larsen for useful suggestions to improve the text.

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