relaxed plasma equilibria and entropy-related plasma self-organization principles放松的等离子体平衡和entropy-related等离子体自组织原则.pdfVIP

Entropy 2008, 10, 621-634; DOI: 10.3390/ OPEN ACCESS entropy ISSN 1099-4300 /journal/entropy Article Relaxed Plasma Equilibria and Entropy-Related Plasma Self-Organization Principles Robert L. Dewar , Matthew J. Hole , Mathew McGann , Ruth Mills and Stuart R. Hudson Plasma and Fluids Theory Group, Research School of Physics Engineering, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia. E-mail: robert.dewar@.au. Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, PO Box 451, Princeton, N.J. 08543, USA. E-mail: shudson@ Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Received: 3 June 2008 / Accepted: 1 October 2008 / Published: 14 November 2008 Abstract: The concept of plasma relaxation as a constrained energy minimization is re- viewed. Recent work by the authors on generalizing this approach to partially relaxed three- dimensional plasma systems in a way consistent with chaos theory is discussed, with a view to clarifying the thermodynamic aspects of the variational approach used. Other entropy-related approaches to finding long-time steady states of turbulent or chaotic plasma systems are also briefly reviewed. Keywords: Plasma, Fusion, Relaxation, Chaos, Turbulence. 1. Introduction Magnetically confined fusion plasmas are thermodynamically nonequilibrium systems, where parti- cles and energy are injected (or generated by fusion reactions) deep in the plasma, providing heat which flows towards the much colder edge region. This creates a kind of heat engine that drives both turbulent flows and more laminar zonal flows, som