Toroidal hydromagnetics

The complete set of hydromagnetic equations is transformed into Poisson equations and equations of motion for flux densities and their associated variables. The toroidal components of the vector potential A and of the momentum density $\text{a}\text{≠}\text{πv}$ are represented by the po loidal flux densities Ψ and Ψ, respectively, for which the equations of motion are derived. The poloidal components A_⊥ and a_⊥ are represen ed by the potentials atΦ, U and φ, u, for which we obtain Poisson equations in the poloidal plane. Thus one has to solve two Dirichlet and two von Neumann problems at every time step. The source terms of the four Poisson equations define the remaining four variables, namely, $\text{Λ = ▽ ·}\text{A}$,$\text{Ω=(▽×}\text{A}\text{)ζ/R}$, $\text{λ=?·}\text{a}$, and $\text{ω=(?×}\text{a}\text{)ζ/R}$, for which equations of motion are also derived. In the limit of small toroidicity ? we look fo r a selfconsistent scaling of the equations with v_⊥～ε. But the curl of v_⊥×B in Faraday's law creates a toroidal plasma component of B which is one order of magnitude larger than in the case of a low β equilibrium; therefore, the motion becomes fully three-dimensional. Finally, an artificial pressure law is needed to balance the lowest order of the Lorentz force. The conclusion is then that the scaling laws previously used are not applicable for toroidal geometry, and that the effort to obtain numerical solutions is not dramatically higher than without using any scaling law.