A representation of MHD and its application to nonlinear stationary states

In order to study nonlinear saturated MHD instabilities, a previously proposed exact representation of MHD by scalar functions is generalized to arbitrary non-orthogonal coordinates, and a system of reduced equations is derived for the case of helical symmetry. Using this reduced system, the bifurcation of stationary nonlinear solutions of the kink type from a cylindrical plasma equilibrium is studied.