No Arabic abstract
Magnetostatics defines a class of boundary value problems in which the topology of the domain plays a subtle role. For example, representability of a divergence-free field as the curl of a vector potential comes about because of homological considerations. With this in mind, we study gauge-freedom in magnetostatics and its effect on the comparison between magnetic configurations through key quantities such as the magnetic helicity. For this, we apply the Hodge decomposition of $k$-forms on compact orientable Riemaniann manifolds with smooth boundary, as well as de Rham cohomology, to the representation of magnetic fields through potential $1$-forms in toroidal volumes. An advantage of the homological approach is the recovery of classical results without explicit coordinates and assumptions about the fields on the exterior of the domain. In particular, a detailed construction of a minimal gauge and a formal proof of relative helicity formulae are presented.
A new formulation of time-dependent Relaxed Magnetohydrodynamics (RxMHD) is derived variationally from Hamiltons Action Principle using microscopic conservation of mass, and macroscopic conservation of total magnetic helicity, cross helicity and entropy, as the only constraints on variations of density, pressure, fluid velocity, and magnetic vector potential over a relaxation domain. A novel phase-space version of the MHD Lagrangian is derived, which gives Euler--Lagrange equations consistent with previous work on exact ideal and relaxed MHD equilibria with flow, but generalizes the relaxation concept from statics to dynamics. The application of the new dynamical formalism is illustrated for short-wavelength linear waves, and the interface connection conditions for Multiregion Relaxed MHD (MRxMHD) are derived. The issue of whether $vec{E} + vec{u}timesvec{B} = 0$ should be a constraint is discussed.
Massive and massless potentials play an essential role in the perturbative formulation of particle interactions. Many difficulties arise due to the indefinite metric in gauge theoretic approaches, or the increase with the spin of the UV dimension of massive potentials. All these problems can be evaded in one stroke: modify the potentials by suitable terms that leave unchanged the field strengths, but are not polynomial in the momenta. This feature implies a weaker localization property: the potentials are string-localized. In this setting, several old issues can be solved directly in the physical Hilbert space of the respective particles: We can control the separation of helicities in the massless limit of higher spin fields and conversely we recover massive potentials with 2s+1 degrees of freedom by a smooth deformation of the massless potentials (fattening). We construct stress-energy tensors for massless fields of any helicity (thus evading the Weinberg-Witten theorem). We arrive at a simple understanding of the van Dam-Veltman-Zakharov discontinuity concerning, e.g., the distinction between a massless or a very light graviton. Finally, the use of string-localized fields opens new perspectives for interacting quantum field theories with, e.g., vector bosons or gravitons.
We establish the method of Bethe ansatz for the XXZ type model obtained from the R-matrix associated to quantum toroidal gl(1). We do that by using shuffle realizations of the modules and by showing that the Hamiltonian of the model is obtained from a simple multiplication operator by taking an appropriate quotient. We expect this approach to be applicable to a wide variety of models.
The application of resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) with a toroidal mode number of n=4 or n=6 to lower single null plasmas in the MAST tokamak produces up to a factor of 5 increase in Edge Localized Mode (ELM) frequency and reduction in plasma energy loss associated with type-I ELMs. A threshold current for ELM mitigation is observed above which the ELM frequency increases approximately linearly with current in the coils. Despite a large scan of parameters, complete ELM suppression has not been achieved. The results have been compared to modelling performed using either the vacuum approximation or including the plasma response. During the ELM mitigated stage clear lobe structures are observed in visible-light imaging of the X-point region. The size of these lobes is correlated with the increase in ELM frequency observed. The characteristics of the mitigated ELMs are similar to those of the natural ELMs suggesting that they are type I ELMs which are triggered at a lower pressure gradient. The application of the RMPs in the n=4 and n=6 configurations before the L-H transition has little effect on the power required to achieve H-mode while still allowing the first ELM to be mitigated.
Motivated by recent discussions on the possible role of quantum computation in plasma simulations, here we present different approaches to Koopmans Hilbert-space formulation of classical mechanics in the context of Vlasov-Maxwell kinetic theory. The celebrated Koopman-von Neumann construction is provided with two different Hamiltonian structures: one is canonical and recovers the usual Clebsch representation of the Vlasov density, the other is noncanonical and appears to overcome certain issues emerging in the canonical formalism. Furthermore, the canonical structure is restored for a variant of the Koopman-von Neumann construction that carries a different phase dynamics. Going back to van Hoves prequantum theory, the corresponding Koopman-van Hove equation provides an alternative Clebsch representation which is then coupled to the electromagnetic fields. Finally, the role of gauge transformations in the new context is discussed in detail.