Macroscopic Stability of Toroidally Confined Fusion Plasmas provides a comprehensive guide to the theory of magnetically confined plasma for fusion. Including the latest developments from the field, the book explores fusion-relevant, toroidal, axisymmetric, magnetic confinement devices, including reversed-field pinches, as well as tokamaks.

It begins by defining the requirements and stability limits of fusion devices, then introduces plasma fluid theory and ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). Subsequent chapters examine plasma stability under various conditions, including ideal and resistive effects, and distinguish between outer and inner plasma regions. It analyses axisymmetric and cylindrical equilibria, as well as specific instabilities like ideal external kink modes, ideal internal kink modes, tearing modes and resistive wall modes. The final chapters focus on tokamak stability, including vertical stability and behaviour at finite pressure, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding plasma confinement and instability in fusion systems.

This book is an ideal reference for graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and professional scientists who wish to learn more about the macroscopic stability of magnetically confined fusion plasmas.

• Provides a complete and up-to-date exposition of macroscopic stability theory
• Includes novel topics such as three-wave coupling in fusion plasmas
• Offers a comprehensive treatment of the asymptotic matching approach to plasma stability calculation

Richard Fitzpatrick is a professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has been a faculty member since 1994. He is a member of the Royal Astronomical Society, a fellow of the American Physical Society, and the author of Maxwell’s Equations and the Principles of Electromagnetism (2008), An Introduction to Celestial Mechanics (2012), Oscillations and Waves: An Introduction (2013), Plasma Physics: An Introduction (2014), Quantum Mechanics (2015), Theoretical Fluid Mechanics (2017), Oscillations and Waves: An Introduction, 2nd Edition (2019), Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (2020), Newtonian Dynamics: An Introduction (2022), Plasma Physics: An Introduction, 2nd Edition (2022), and Tearing Mode Dynamics in Tokamak Plasmas (2023). He earned a Master’s degree in physics from the University of Cambridge and a D. Phil. in astronomy from the University of Sussex.