Vanishing magnetic shear and electron transport barriers in the RFX-mod reversed field pinch

We define the safety factor q for the helical plasmas of the experiment RFX-mod by accounting for the actual three-dimensional nature of the magnetic flux surfaces. Such a profile is not monotonic but goes through a maximum located in the vicinity of the electron transport barriers measured by a high resolution Thomson scattering diagnostic. Helical states with a single axis obtained in viscoresistive magnetohydrodynamic numerical simulations exhibit similar nonmonotonic q profiles provided that the final states are preceded by a magnetic island phase, like in the experiment.     

Quasi-single-helicity reversed-field-pinch plasmas

The reversed field pinch (RFP) is a configuration for plasma magnetic confinement. It has been traditionally viewed as dominated by a bath of MHD instabilities producing magnetic chaos and high energy transport. We report experimental results which go beyond this view. They show a decrease of magnetic chaos and the formation of a coherent helical structure in the plasma, whose imaging and temperature profile are provided for the first time. These quasi-single-helicity states are observed both transiently and in stationary conditions. The last case is consistent with a theoretically predicted bifurcation. Our results set a new frame for improving confinement in high current nonchaotic RFP's.     

Finite Range of Large Perturbations in Hamiltonian Dynamics

The dynamics defined by the Hamiltonian , where the _m are fixed random phases, is investigated for large values of A, and for . For a given P ^* and for , this Hamiltonian is transformed through a rigorous perturbative treatment into a Hamiltonian where the sum of all the nonresonant terms, having a Q dependence of the kind cos(kQ – nt + _m) with \Delta \upsilon$$ " align="middle" border="0"> , is a random variable whose r.m.s. with respect to the _m is exponentially small in the parameter . Using this result, a rationale is provided showing that the statistical properties of the dynamics defined by H, and of the reduced dynamics including at each time t only the terms in H such that , can be made arbitrarily close by increasing . For practical purposes close to 5 is enough, as confirmed numerically. The reduced dynamics being nondeterministic, it is thus analytically shown, without using the random-phase approximation, that the statistical properties of a chaotic Hamiltonian dynamics can be made arbitrarily close to that of a stochastic dynamics. An appropriate rescaling of momentum and time shows that the statistical properties of the dynamics defined by H can be considered as independent of A, on a finite time interval, for A large. The way these results could generalize to a wider class of Hamiltonians is indicated.     

Efficient mutation detection in MEN1 gene using a combination of single-strand conformation polymorphism (MDGA) and heteroduplex analysis

For facilitated genotypic analysis of multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1), a familial syndrome associated with tumors of the parathyroid and neuroendocrine tissues, we developed two screening methods, heteroduplex mutation assay (HMA) and mutation detection gel analysis (MDGA), both based on electrophoretic discrimination of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products, to detect the mutations. Forty-three genomic DNA samples were used for the evaluation of these techniques. The whole coding region of MEN1 was PCR-amplified with fluorescent primers and then denatured/renatured before electrophoresis on an automated sequencer. 100% of the mutations were detected, subsequently confirmed and identified by sequencing. "Negative" samples were used to evaluate the specificity and reproducibility of the two techniques. The combination of the two methods allows high throughput cost-effective mutation screening which is less laborious than systematic sequencing of the whole coding region of MEN1. Together, these methods provide an efficient screen for MEN1 mutations.     

Self-consistent check of the validity of Gibbs calculus using dynamical variables

The high- and low-energy limits of a chain of coupled rotators are integrable and correspond respectively to a set of free rotators and to a chain of harmonic oscillators. For intermediate values of the energy, numerical calculations show the agreement of finite time averages of physical observables with their Gibbsian estimate. The boundaries between the two integrable limits and the statistical domain are analytically computed using the Gibbsian estimates of dynamical observables. For large energies the geometry of nonlinear resonances enables the definition of relevant 1.5-degree-of-freedom approximations of the dynamics. They provide resonance overlap parameters whose Gibbsian probability distribution may be computed. Requiring the support of this distribution to be right above the large-scale stochasticity threshold of the 1.5-degree-of-freedom dynamics yields the boundary at the large-energy limit. At the low-energy limit, the boundary is shown to correspond to the energy where the specific heat departs from that of the corresponding harmonic chain.     

Bifurcation in viscoresistive MHD: the hartmann number and the reversed field pinch

A scaling approach to the simplest viscoresistive MHD model reveals that the Prandtl number acts only through the inertia term. When this term is negligible the dynamics is ruled by the Hartmann number H only. This occurs for the reversed field pinch dynamics as seen by numerical simulation of the model. When H is large the system is in a multiple helicity state. In the vicinity of H = 2500 the system displays temporal intermittency with laminar phases of quasi-single-helicity (SH) type. For lower H's two basins of SH are shown to coexist. SH regimes are of interest because of their nonchaotic magnetic field.     

Chaos healing by separatrix disappearance and quasisingle helicity states of the reversed field pinch

The resilience to chaotic perturbations of one-parameter one-degree-of-freedom Hamiltonian dynamics is shown to increase when its corresponding separatrix vanishes due to a saddle-node bifurcation. This is first highlighted for the magnetic chaos related to quasisingle helicity (QSH) states of the reversed field pinch. It provides a rationale for the confinement improvement of helical structures experimentally found for QSH plasmas; such a feature would not be expected from the classical resonance overlap picture as the separatrix disappearance occurs when the amplitude of the dominant mode increases.     

Renormalization method for the onset of stochasticity in a hamiltonian system

An approximate renormalization procedure is derived for the hamiltonian $\text{H(v, x, t)=}\text{v}{}^2\text{2}\text{? M}\text{cos}\text{x ? P}\text{cos}\text{k(x ? t)}$. It gives an estimate of the threshold of the large-scale stochastic instability which agrees within 5 to 10% with the results given by direct numerical integration of the canonical equations.