Self-organization of stable plasma*

The HIT-SI experiment inductively drives the edge current and also imposes asymmetric perturbations with the surprising discovery that stable equilibria are sustained. Perturbations cause a force on the current that flattens the current profile of stable equilibria. From developing a physical description of the phenomenon some hypotheses emerge about self-organized kink-stable equilibria:

1. Magnetic plasma relaxes toward a state of minimum energy while conserving helicity. The MECH state is stable.

 2. Helicity injection and imposed perturbations may allow the sustainment of stable equilibria with a stepped j/B profile.

 3. AC asymmetric helicity injection may stabilize slow growing instabilities through dynamic stabilization.

4. Electron velocity shear may locally stabilize and symmetrize most unstable modes of an MHD kink-stable equilibrium.

5. Pressure driven interchange may flatten the j/B-profile helping to stabilize kink-modes.

Physical arguments and computational and experimental data will be shown in favor of these hypotheses as well as arguments and data against.