English

Are ghost surfaces quadratic-flux-minimizing?

Plasma Physics 2010-01-02 v2 Mathematical Physics math.MP Chaotic Dynamics Classical Physics

Abstract

Two candidates for "almost-invariant" toroidal surfaces passing through magnetic islands, namely quadratic-flux-minimizing (QFMin) surfaces and ghost surfaces, use families of periodic pseudo-orbits (i.e. paths for which the action is not exactly extremal). QFMin pseudo-orbits, which are coordinate-dependent, are field lines obtained from a modified magnetic field, and ghost-surface pseudo-orbits are obtained by displacing closed field lines in the direction of steepest descent of magnetic action, Adl\oint \vec{A}\cdot\mathbf{dl}. A generalized Hamiltonian definition of ghost surfaces is given and specialized to the usual Lagrangian definition. A modified Hamilton's Principle is introduced that allows the use of Lagrangian integration for calculation of the QFMin pseudo-orbits. Numerical calculations show QFMin and Lagrangian ghost surfaces give very similar results for a chaotic magnetic field perturbed from an integrable case, and this is explained using a perturbative construction of an auxiliary poloidal angle for which QFMin and Lagrangian ghost surfaces are the same up to second order. While presented in the context of 3-dimensional magnetic field line systems, the concepts are applicable to defining almost-invariant tori in other 11/21{1/2} degree-of-freedom nonintegrable Lagrangian/Hamiltonian systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0909.2096,
  title  = {Are ghost surfaces quadratic-flux-minimizing?},
  author = {S. R. Hudson and R. L. Dewar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0909.2096},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

8 pages, 3 figures. Revised version includes post-publication corrections in text, as described in Appendix C Erratum

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