Onset of chaotic field line trajectories in tokamaks

Summary The onset of chaotic field line trajectories on tokamak plasmas perturbed by external resonant helical currents has been investigated. The spatial distribution of field lines is obtained integrating numerically the differential equations for the perturbed field lines and investigating the Poincaré maps characteristic of these fields. Several algorithms have been computed to identify the transition to large-scale stochasticity for this quasi-integrable dynamical system, which, for a given m.h.d. equilibrium, is determined by the enhancement of the coupling between the helical perturbation and the toroidicity, as the helical current increases. The authors of this paper have agreed to not receive the proofs for correction. Work partially supported by CNPq and FINEP.