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Most Probable Magnetohydrostatic Equilibria For Tokamaks And Reversed Field Pinches, John Joseph Ambrosiano

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The determination of magnetohydrostatic equilibria usually requires that two of the equilibrium functions be given. as there is usually no a priori basis for specifying the form of these two functions, the functions and the equilibria they determine may be considered random.;In this dissertation, the author reviews a recent statistical method for determining the equilibrium of an axially symmetric cylindrical plasma which is most probable (in the maximum entropy sense) given four global constraints (i.e., energy, magnetic helicity, longitudinal magnetic flux, and longitudinal current flux). Previous results from this model have been limited to non-negative random equilibrium functions (B(,z), J(,z), …