Calculations of axisymmetric stability of tokamak plasmas with active and passive feedback (Q1208866)

The paper contains an investigation of the problem of axisymmetric stability of tokamak plasmas. The approach is purely computational: The authors describe ``a non-ideal MHD stability code, NOVA-W, that calculates the linear stability of axisymmetric modes in general geometry with passive and active feedback included.'' If there is a precise mathematical meaning of this statement, it does not become clear in the paper; the reviewer -- not being an expert in computational plasma physics -- found the presentation rather difficult to follow. First the authors give a formulation of the mathematical model used to describe the tokamak plasma. It consists of linear magnetohydrodynamics eigenvalue equations with boundary conditions at the plasma-vacuum interface, supplemented with feedback matrices which model the feedback stabilizing mechanism. Then the authors describe the numerical method, without mathematically addressing questions of convergence, and present numerical results both for passive and active stabilization systems.