Stationary toroidal equilibria at finite beta

Abstract

We investigate the effects of plasma flow on axisymmetric, self-consistent equilibria in toroidal geometry. The investigation is of considerable interest in relation to hot plasmas confined in toroidal systems with longitudinal current. On the basis of the one-fluid MHD plasma model, we use a concise formulation to elucidate important features of the equilibrium. In contrast to previous flow calculations which were treated almost exclusively in the low-beta approximation, we retain, together with flow, all beta effects.