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Topological Arrest of Ballooning Modes in Nonaxisymmetric Toroidal Plasmas
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 105101 – Published 1 September, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/6m2z-wlmb
Abstract
Why do nonaxisymmetric stellarators avoid ballooning crashes that afflict tokamaks? Three-dimensional geometry induces Anderson localization of ballooning modes, converting a global instability into a Ginzburg-Landau network of isolated wave packets. Global stability reduces to a percolation problem: Below a critical threshold, instability is arrested; above it, a crash occurs. This explains benign stellarator saturation, predicts vulnerability in quasisymmetric designs, and introduces the critical threshold as a nonlinear stability metric for reactor optimization, pending experimental validation.
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