Control of chaotic magnetic fields in tokamaks

Abstract

Chaotic magnetic field lines play an important role in plasma confinement by tokamaks. They can either be generated in the plasma as a result of natural instabilities or artifficially produced by external conductors, like resonant helical windings and ergodic magnetic limiters. This is a review of works carried out at the Universidade de São Paulo and Universidade Federal do Paraná on theoretical and experimental aspects of generation and control of chaotic magnetic field lines in tokamaks.