Limiter stabilization of high-beta external kink-tearing modes

Abstract

The stabilizing effects of finite-width poloidal limiters, toroidal limiters, and general mushroom limiters are examined for high-beta finite resistivity tokamak plamas in free boundary. When the plasma pressure and resistivity are small, a poloidal limiter is effective in reducing the growth rate even with a small limiter size, while a toroidal limiter requires a large size for a comparable effect. As the plasma pressure or resistivity increases, a toroidal limiter becomes more effective in reducing the growth rate than a poloidal limiter of the same size. A small optimized mushroom limiter might have a stabilizing effect similar to a conducting shell.