SPECTRE: A robust solver for 3D equilibria with arbitrary topology

Abstract

We present SPECTRE, a new equilibrium code based on the Multi-Region relaxed MHD model for robustly calculating 3D equilibria with general magnetic topology, allowing for flux surfaces, magnetic islands, and chaos. The code builds on a previous MRxMHD solver, SPEC, but performs significantly better thanks to a new formulation of force, the use of a stable trust-region-based least squares minimization scheme, as well as several additional features. SPECTRE is verified through application to configurations with known equilibrium solutions, in vacuum and with finite beta, both in the fixed boundary and the free boundary mode. Notably, these include vacuum equilibria of a quasi-axisymmetric (QA) device in fixed-boundary mode, and of W7-X in the free-boundary mode, along with a classical stellarator finite-beta free-boundary case. Finally, the solver is applied to a modern optimized finite-beta quasi-isodynamic (QI) configuration, where we demonstrate calculation of a strongly-shaped equilibrium with a core island which is in agreement with a HINT calculation.