A generic non-symmetric magnetic field does not confine magnetized charged
particles for long times due to secular magnetic drifts. Stellarator magnetic
fields should be omnigeneous (that is, designed such that the secular drifts
vanish), but perfect omnigeneity is technically impossible. There always are
small deviations from omnigeneity that necessarily have large gradients. The
amplification of the energy flux caused by a deviation of size ϵ is
calculated and it is shown that the scaling with ϵ of the
amplification factor can be as large as linear. In opposition to common wisdom,
most of the transport is not due to particles trapped in ripple wells, but to
the perturbed motion of particles trapped in the omnigeneous magnetic wells
around their bounce points.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure