Large solar flares are probably the most spectacular eruptive events in cosmical plasmas. Though rather weak in absolute magnitude compared for instance with the enormous energies set free in a supernova explosion, they outshine all other cosmic events for a terrestrial observer. According to the generally accepted picture, a flare constitutes a sudden release of magnetic energy stored in the corona and is therefore primarily an MHD process, though the various nonthermal channels of energy dissipation and deposition, which give rise to the richness of the observations, require a framework broader than MHD theory.

Since the major part of this book is concerned primarily with phenomena in laboratory plasmas, it seems to be convenient for the generally interested reader to find a somewhat broader introduction to this astrophysical topic. The engine driving the magnetic activity in the solar atmosphere is turbulent convection in the solar interior. Section 10.1 therefore gives an overview of our present understanding of the convection zone, in particular magnetoconvection. In section 10.2 we consider the solar atmosphere, its mean stratification, the process of magnetic flux emergence from the convection zone and the magnetic structures in the corona, in particular in active regions. In section 10.3 we then focus in on the MHD modelling of the flare phenomenon.

Ordinary nonmagnetic fluids are known to become turbulent at sufficiently high Reynolds numbers and a similar behavior is expected for electrically conducting magnetized fluids, though direct experimental evidence is scarce. Some confusion may arise, however, owing to the convention, widespread in the fusion research community, of calling the Lundquist number S = LvA/η the magnetic Reynolds number, the latter being correctly defined by Rm = Lv/η, where v is some average fluid velocity. S ≫ 1 simply means that the resistivity is small, while the system may well be nonturbulent, or even static corresponding to Rm ≃ 0. S is an important theoretical parameter characterizing growth rates of possible resistive instabilities. But only when large fluid velocities are generated in the nonlinear phase of an instability or by some external stirring Rm can become large, making the system prone to turbulence. MHD turbulence can thus be expected only in strongly dynamic systems, e.g. disruptive processes in tokamaks or flares in the solar atmosphere.

Though the behavior at Reynolds numbers close to the critical value, where the transition from laminar flow to turbulence occurs, has recently attracted much attention, the strongest interest is in the high-Reynolds-number regime, where turbulence is fully developed, which is characteristic of most turbulent fluids in nature.

Tokamaks constitute the best plasma physics laboratory available today. The largest devices (e.g. JET and DIII-D) confine plasmas of considerable volume (many m3), high densities (ne ∼ 1020 m-3) and high temperatures (Te ∼ 10 keV) under quasi-stationary conditions (for an introduction to the general physics of tokamaks see Wesson, 1987). Tokamak plasmas exhibit a rich variety of MHD phenomena, being investigated by numerous diagnostic tools with high spatial and temporal resolution, which make theoretical interpretation a challenging task.

Particularly conspicuous MHD effects are the different kinds of disruptive events which affect global plasma confinement more or less severely. In this chapter we consider the three most important disruptive processes. Section 8.1 deals with the sawtooth oscillation, a quasi-periodic internal relaxation process, which is observed in most tokamak discharges. Their main effect is to limit the central temperature increase, generating a more uniform average temperature distribution. They also have the beneficial effect of preventing the central accumulation of impurity ions.

Section 8.2 considers major disruptions, which constitute the most violent processes in a tokamak plasma. Disruptions occur when certain limits in the plasma parameters are exceeded, causing loss of a large fraction of the plasma energy, which often leads to the termination of the discharge.

Plasma physics has sometimes been called the science of instabilities. In fact during the last three decades of plasma research, stability theory was probably the most intensively studied field. The reason for this widespread activity is the empirical finding that in general plasmas, especially those generated in laboratory devices, are not quiescent but spontaneously develop rapid dynamics which often tend to terminate the plasma discharge. MHD instabilities are considered as particularly dangerous because they usually involve large-scale motions and short time scales. Though a realistic picture of dynamic plasma processes requires a nonlinear theory, the knowledge of the basic linear instability is usually a very helpful starting point, in particular since linear theory has a solid mathematical foundation.

The organization of the chapter is as follows. Section 4.1 presents the linearized MHD equations. In section 4.2 we consider the simplest case of linear eigenmodes, waves in a homogeneous plasma. The energy principle is introduced in section 4.3. In section 4.4 we then derive in some detail the theory of eigenmodes in a circular cylindrical pinch, which contains many qualitative features of geometrically more complicated configurations. In section 4.5 this theory is applied to the cylindrical tokamak model. The influence of toroidicity, which most severely affects the n = 1 mode, is discussed briefly in section 4.6.

Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) describes the macroscopic behavior of electrically conducting fluids, notably of plasmas. However, in contrast to what the name seems to indicate, work in MHD has usually little to do with dynamics, or at least has had so in the past. In fact, most MHD studies of plasmas deal with magnetostatic configurations. This is not only a question of convenience — powerful mathematical methods have been developed in magnetostatic equilibrium theory — but is also based on fundamental properties of magnetized plasmas. While in hydrodynamics of nonconducting fluids static configurations are boringly simple and interesting phenomena are in general only caused by sufficiently rapid fluid motions, conducting fluids are often confined by strong magnetic fields for times which are long compared with typical flow decay times, so that the effects of fluid dynamics are weak, giving rise to quasistatic magnetic field configurations. Such configurations may appear in a bewildering variety of shapes generated by the particular boundary conditions, e.g. the external coils in laboratory experiments or the “foot point” flux distributions in the solar photosphere, and their study is both necessary and rewarding.

In addition to finding the appropriate equilibrium solutions one must also determine their stability properties, since in the real world only stable equilibria exist.

Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is the macroscopic theory of electrically conducting fluids, providing a powerful and practical theoretical framework for describing both laboratory and astrophysical plasmas. Most textbooks and monographs on the topic, however, concentrate on two particular aspects, magnetostatic equilibria and linear stability theory, while nonlinear effects, i.e. real magnetohydrodynamics, are considered only briefly if at all. I have therefore felt the need for a book with a special focus on the nonlinear aspects of the theory for some time.

In contrast to linear theory which, in particular in the limit of ideal MHD, rests on mathematically solid ground, nonlinear theory means adventures in a, mathematically speaking, hostile world, where few things can be proved rigorously. While in linear stability analysis numerical calculations are mainly quantitative evaluations, they obtain a different character in the study of nonlinear phenomena, which are often even qualitatively unknown. Hence this book frequently refers to results from numerical simulations, as a glance at the various illustrations reveals, but consideration is focused on the physics rather than the numerics.

In spite of the numerous references to the literature the book is essentially self-contained. Even the individual chapters can be studied quite independently as introductions to or current overviews of their particular topics.

There is hardly a term in plasma physics exhibiting more scents, facets and also ambiguities than does magnetic reconnection or, simply, reconnection. It is even sometimes used with a touch of magic. The basic picture underlying the idea of reconnection is that of two field lines (thin flux tubes, properly speaking) being carried along with the fluid owing to the property of flux conservation until they come close together at some point, where by the effect of finite resistivity they are cut and reconnected in a different way. Though this is a localized process, it may fundamentally change the global field line connection as indicated in Fig. 6.1, permitting fluid motions which would be inhibited in the absence of such local decoupling of fluid and magnetic field. Almost all nonlinear processes in magnetized conducting fluids involve reconnection, which may be called the essence of nonlinear MHD.

Because of the omnipresence of finite resistivity in real systems resistive diffusion takes place everywhere in the plasma, though usually at a slow rate. Reconnection theory is concerned with the problem of fast reconnection in order to explain how in certain dynamic processes very small values of the resistivity allow the rapid release of a large amount of free magnetic energy, as observed for instance in tokamak disruptions or solar flares.

The study of linear stability of plasmas had for a long period been carried by the conception that only stable configurations can exist in nature, since instability would lead to destruction of the equilibrium and loss of plasma confinement, which would be the faster the larger the growth rate. Statements like: “all plasmas (meaning real inhomogeneous plasma configurations) are unstable”, sometimes pronounced by plasma theoreticians in the heyday of instability theory, seemed to imply that magnetic fusion research is basically a futile endeavor. The development in experimental plasma physics during the past two decades proved this conception thoroughly wrong. Tokamak discharges may exist, well confined, in spite of the presence of instabilities, which often lead only to a slight change of the plasma profiles and a certain increase of plasma and energy transport (and which may even have beneficial effects such as the removal of impurities by the sawtooth process). Thus in order to judge the effect of an instability it is evidently necessary to calculate or at least estimate its nonlinear behavior, in particular the saturation level. It will turn out that linear mode properties, in particular growth rates, often have little to say about the nonlinear behavior.

As a general rule an instability is found to be the more “dangerous”, i.e. its effect on the plasma configuration is the more detrimental, the longer the wavelength (global modes).

The structural form of geodesic domes, composed of pentagons and hexagons, played an important role in understanding the structure of carbon clusters. In this paper an analogy between geodesic domes and fullerenes is investigated. A brief survey is given of the geometry of geodesic domes applied in engineering practice, in particular of the geodesic domes bounded by pentagons and hexagons. A connection is also made between these sorts of geodesic domes and the mathematical problem of the determination of the smallest diameter of n equal circles by which the surface of a sphere can be covered without gaps. It is shown that the conjectured solutions to the sphere-covering problem provide topologically the same configurations as fullerene polyhedra for some values of n. Mechanical models of fullerenes, composed of equal rigid nodes and equal elastic bars are also investigated, and the equilibrium shapes of the space frames that model C28, C60 and C240 are presented.

Introduction

From visual inspection one can easily discover an analogy between the structure of C60 and the inner layer of the structure of the great U.S. pavilion of R. B. Fuller at the 1967 Montreal Expo. This analogy and other geodesic structures of Fuller were responsible for the name of C60: Buckminsterfullerene (Kroto et al. 1985). This is not the first time that Fuller's geodesic domes have helped researchers to understand the structure of matter. In the early 1960s Fuller's geodesic domes, especially his tensegrity spheres, inspired Caspar & Klug (1962) to develop the principle of quasiequivalence in virus research.

Small carbon grains are assumed to be the carrier of the prominent interstellar ultra violet absorption at 217 nm. To investigate this hypothesis, we produced small carbon particles by evaporating graphite in an inert quenching gas atmosphere, collected the grains on substrates, and measured their optical spectra. In the course of this work – which in the decisive final phase was carried out with the help of K. Fostiropoulos and L. D. Lamb – we showed that the smoke samples contained substantial quantities of C60. The fullerene C60 (with small admixtures of C70) was successfully separated from the sooty particles and, for the first time, characterized as a solid. We suggested the name ‘fullerite’ for this new form of crystalline carbon.

Introduction

The production of laboratory analogues of interstellar grains was the initial aim of our research. In the autumn of 1982 while one of us (D.R.H.) was a Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg we decided to study the optical spectra of carbon grains. We felt challenged by the intense, strong interstellar ultra violet (uv) absorption at 217 nm which it had been proposed was due to graphitic grains (see, for example, Stecher 1969). The arguments in favour of such carriers are based primarily on calculations of the absorption of small, almost spherical, particles which exhibit the dielectric functions of graphite (for more recent literature see, for example, Draine 1988). There had already been very early experimental attempts to produce graphitic smoke particles by almost the same technique that we later applied to C60 production (see, for example, Day & Huffman 1973).

The chemistry by which the closed-cage carbon clusters, C60 and C70, can be formed in high yield out of the chaos of condensing carbon vapour is considered. Several mechanisms for this process that have been proposed are critically discussed. The two most attractive are the ‘pentagon road’ where open sheets grow following the alternating pentagon rule and the ‘fullerene road’ where smaller fullerenes grow in small steps in a process which finds the buckminsterfullerene (C60) local deep energy minimum and to a lesser extent the C70 (D5h) minimum. A clear choice between the two does not seem possible with available information.

Introduction

The observation (Kroto et al. 1985) that the truncated icosahedron molecule, CBF60 (buckminsterfullerene), is formed spontaneously in condensing carbon vapour was greeted by some in the chemical community with some doubt. It seemed incredible that this highly symmetrical, closed, low entropy molecule was forming spontaneously out of the chaos of condensing high-temperature carbon vapour. We still believe that the formation of CBF60 in supersonic cluster beam sources must be a relatively minor channel, probably accounting for less than 1% of the total carbon. Thus when CBF60F was finally isolated from graphitic soot (Krätschmer et al. 1990), it came as a surprise that the CBF60 plus C70 yields were as large as 5%. Later yields have improved substantially, for example Parker et al. (1991) obtained a total yield of CBF60 of about 20% with total extractable fullerene yields totalling 44% from a carbon arc soot. Thus conditions can be found where CBF60 and fullerene formation in carbon condensation can hardly be called a minor channel.