Talk:Stellarator

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Mentioning the configurations (Torsatron, Heliotron, and Helias) is a good idea, but the recent edit is incomprehensible. --Art Carlson 18:33, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The description is entirely unclear as to what it is and how it works in comparison to a toroid, particularly the flow of plasma. Oc1 1st 2006 Anonymous Coward

Agree that it's very unclear. Here's an outline suggestion, based on building up a taxonomy of confinement schemes with their problems.

  1. No force on a particle from v-parallel. (Define v-parallel in the article, or point to an explanation somewhere else in the magnetic confinement pages. I'm assuming the Talk participants know it, and it's gotta be somewhere near here.) So particles' motion along field lines unconfined. Solution: have a toroid and bend the field lines back to meet themselves.
  2. Oops. Particles still not confined very well. Single particle motions are still good enough to predict the problem, and it's B x grad B drift. Maybe point out that grad B is a consequence of bending into a toroid. Solution: twist the field lines so along-the-field-lines motion carries the particle back to the inside of the toroid.
  3. How to twist?
    1. Current in the plasma. This way lies tokamaks.
    2. More complicated external fields with poloidal components. This way lies stellarators.

JohnAspinall 17:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I notice that a lot of this taxonomy is already present (as it should be!) in Magnetic_confinement_fusion. The right solution is probably to improve that description (see my comments there) and make copious references back from here. JohnAspinall 17:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)