Title
Analysis of Recurrent Patterns in Toroidal Magnetic Fields
Abstract
In the development of magnetic confinement fusion which will potentially be a future source for low cost power, physicists must be able to analyze the magnetic field that confines the burning plasma. While the magnetic field can be described as a vector field, traditional techniques for analyzing the field's topology cannot be used because of its Hamiltonian nature. In this paper we describe a technique developed as a collaboration between physicists and computer scientists that determines the topology of a toroidal magnetic field using fieldlines with near minimal lengths.More specifically, we analyze the Poincaré map of the sampled fieldlines in a Poincaré section including identifying critical points and other topological features of interest to physicists.The technique has been deployed into an interactiveparallel visualization tool which physicists are using to gain new insight into simulations of magnetically confined burning plasmas.
Year
DOI
Venue
2010
10.1109/TVCG.2010.133
IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph.
Keywords
Field
DocType
Confined magnetic fusion, magnetic field visualization, Poincare map, periodic magnetic fieldlines, recurrent patterns
Magnetic field,Poincaré map,Hamiltonian (quantum mechanics),Magnetic confinement fusion,Vector field,Computer science,Theoretical computer science,Electromagnetic coil,Toroid,Plasma,Classical mechanics
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
16
6
1077-2626
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
12
0.55
22
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Allen R. Sanderson114411.10
Guoning Chen232023.72
Xavier Tricoche364037.12
Dave Pugmire415218.62
Scott Kruger5182.11
Joshua Breslau6130.91