Abstract
Relaxation in low-β plasmas has long been recognized and usually been described by the Taylor relaxation principle. Recently, relaxation has also appeared in an extremely high-/? (over 85%) plasma formed by highly super Alfvenic translation of a spheromak-like compact toroid (CT) in the translation, confinement and sustainment (TCS) experiment. Strong flux conversion from toroidal to poloidal occurs during the highly dynamic relaxation process while the magnetic helicity is approximately preserved, leading to a novel relaxed state that exhibits a spherical-torus- (ST-) like field-reversed configuration (FRC). Modeling using the newly developed nearby-fluids theory shows that a broad core of the FRC-ST resembles a two-fluid minimum energy state. This FRC-ST state exhibits a significant improvement in confinement and remarkable stability. The latter is explained by a simple stability model, taking into account magnetic shear and centrifugal effects.
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