In this book, we describe in detail a numerical method to study the equilibrium and stability of a plasma confined by a strong magnetic field in toroidal geometry without two-dimensional symmetry. The principal appli cation is to stellarators, which are currently of interest in thermonuclear fusion research. Our mathematical model is based on the partial differential equations of ideal magnetohydrodynamics. The main contribution is a computer code named BETA that is listed in the final chapter. This work is the natural continuation of an investigation that was presented in an early volume of...

In this book, we report on research in methods of computational magneto- hydrodynamics supported by the United States Department of Energy under Contract EY-76-C-02-3077 with New York University. The work has re- sulted in a computer code for mathematical analysis of the equilibrium and stability of a plasma in three dimensions with toroidal geometry but no sym- metry. The code is listed in the final chapter. Versions of it have been used for the design of experiments at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching. We are grateful to Daniel...