High-b equilibria in tokamaks with toroidal flow

We extend existing 2-D analytical high-b equilibrium solutions obtained by Cowley et al. [Phys. Fluids B 3, 2066 (1991)] and Hsu et al. [Phys. Plasmas 3, 266 (1996)] to the case of toroidally flowing plasma, assuming ideal magnetohydrodynamics and isothermal magnetic surfaces. Invoking the ordering bq 2 and M /q2 , we solve the boundary layer problem, re-obtaining the static solution in the zero flow limit. The phenomenon of extreme plasma diamagnetism in the static solution was found to be reduced due to centrifugal drift currents for significant toroidal flow. Example equilibrium calculations are presented using plasma parameters which are approaching attainable values in next generation spherical tokamaks. VC 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3641966]