Saturated ideak kink/peeling formations described as three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic tokamak equilibrium states
Free boundary magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium states with spontaneous three dimensional deformations of the plasma-vacuum interface are computed for the first time. The structures obtained have the appearance of saturated ideal external kink/peeling modes. High edge pres- sure gradients yield toroidal mode number n = 1 corrugations for a high edge bootstrap cur- rent and larger n distortions when this current is small. Deformations in the plasma boundary region induce a nonaxisymmetric Pfirsch-Schlueter current driving a field-aligned current rib- bon consistent with reported experimental observations. A variation in the 3D equilibrium confirms that the n = 1 mode is a kink/peeling structure. We surmise that our calculated equi- librium structures constitute a viable model for the edge harmonic oscillations and outer modes associated with a quiescent H-mode operation in shaped tokamak plasmas.