Stellarator kinetic theory

A very important field of stellarator theory is based on the kinetic equati ons. This paper reviews the kinetic equations and the reduction of the phas e-space dimension by averaging of the fastest time scales. The difference o f stellarators to axisymmetric tokamaks is discussed, and the main aspects for stellarator confinement optimization in the neoclassical theory are ana lyzed. Stellerator-specific applications of the kinetic theory are given in examples.