Determining how magnetic helicity injection really works. Annual progress report

Abstract

Magnetic helicity injection is the essential process underlying both spheromak formation and helicity injection toroidal current drive in tokamaks (e.g., HIT and NSTX). The dynamical details of the helicity injection process are poorly understood because existing models avoid a dynamic description. In particular, Taylor relaxation, the main model motivating helicity injection efforts, is an argument that predicts the state to which a turbulent magnetic configuration relaxes after all dynamics are over. The goal of the Caltech experiment is to investigate the actual dynamics and topological evolution associated with relaxation and so determine how helicity injection really works. Although the global relaxation model (i.e., Taylor model) typically invokes axisymmetry, simple physical arguments (Cowling`s theorem) show that the detailed dynamics must involve topologically complex, non-axisymmetric processes. Progress for this project is given here.