Breakdown of adiabatic invariance in spherical tokamaks

Thermal ions in spherical tokamaks have two adiabatic invariants: the magnetic moment and the longitudinal invariant. For hot ions, variations in magnetic-field strength over a gyro period can become sufficiently large to cause breakdown of the adiabatic invariance. The magnetic moment is more sensitive to perturbations than the longitudinal invariant and there exists an intermediate regime, super-adiabaticity, where the longitudinal invariant remains adiabatic, but the magnetic moment does not. The motion of super-adiabatic ions remains integrable and confinement is thus preserved. However, above a threshold energy, the longitudinal invariant becomes non-adiabatic too, and confinement is lost as the motion becomes chaotic. We predict beam ions in present-day spherical tokamaks to be super-adiabatic but fusion alphas in proposed burning-plasma spherical tokamaks to be non-adiabatic.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figure

Local Relativistic Exact Decoupling

We present a systematic hierarchy of approximations for {\it local} exact-decoupling of four-component quantum chemical Hamiltonians based on the Dirac equation. Our ansatz reaches beyond the trivial local approximation that is based on a unitary transformation of only the atomic block-diagonal part of the Hamiltonian. Systematically, off-diagonal Hamiltonian matrix blocks can be subjected to a unitary transformation to yield relativistically corrected matrix elements. The full hierarchy is investigated with respect to the accuracy reached for the electronic energy and molecular properties on a balanced test molecule set that comprises molecules with heavy elements in different bonding situations. Our atomic (local) assembly of the unitary transformation needed for exact decoupling provides an excellent local approximation for any relativistic exact-decoupling approach. Its order-$N^2$ scaling can be further reduced to linear scaling by employing the neighboring-atomic-blocks approximation. Therefore, it is an efficient relativistic method perfectly well suited for relativistic calculations on large molecules. If a large molecule contains many light atoms (typically hydrogen atoms), the computational costs can be further reduced by employing a well-defined non-relativistic approximation for these light atoms without significant loss of accuracy

Automated mixed traffic vehicle control and scheduling study

The operation and the expected performance of a proposed automatic guideway transit system which uses low speed automated mixed traffic vehicles (AMTVs) were analyzed. Vehicle scheduling and headway control policies were evaluated with a transit system simulation model. The effect of mixed traffic interference on the average vehicle speed was examined with a vehicle pedestrian interface model. Control parameters regulating vehicle speed were evaluated for safe stopping and passenger comfort. Some preliminary data on the cost and operation of an experimental AMTV system are included. These data were the result of a separate task conducted at JPL, and were included as background information