Statistical analysis of the equilibrium configurations of the W7-X stellarator

Abstract

Equilibrium magnetic configurations of W7-X stellarator plasma were analysed in this study. The statistical method of function parametrization was used to recover the physical properties of the magnetic configurations, such as the flux surface geometry, the magnetic field and the iota profile from simulated experimental data. The study was carried out with a net toroidal current. Idealized ‘measurements’ were first used to recover the configuration. These ‘ measurements’ were then perturbed with noise and the effect of this perturbation on the recovered configuration parameters was estimated. The noise was scanned over a range large enough to encompass that expected in the actual experiment. In the process, it was possible to ascertain the limit of tolerable noise that can be allowed in the inputs so as not to significantly perturb the outputs recovered with noiseless ‘measurements’. Generally, a cubic polynomial model was found to be necessary for noise levels below 10%. For higher noise levels, a quadratic polynomial performed as well as the cubic. The noise level of 10% was also the approximate limit up to which the recovery with ideal measurements was generally reproduced. For the flux geometry recovery, however, the quadratic model performed similarly to the cubic for any value of noise, with the latter model proving to be significantly better only for the noiseless case. Also, with noisy predictors the recovery error for the flux surfaces increases linearly with effective radius from the plasma core up to the edge.