Plasma equilibria in dipolar magnetic configurations

The effects of finite plasma pressure and pressure anisotropy, toroidal rot ation and gravity on the equilibrium, flow, and stability of plasma in dipo lar magnetic configurations are considered. Dipolar equilibria are of inter est for magnetic confinement experiments in the laboratory and understandin g the physics of magnetospheric and astrophysical plasmas. It is demonstrat ed that realistic solutions of the appropriate ideal magnetohydrodynamics ( MHD) equations can be found in a separable form which drastically simplifie s the equations and even allows us to analytically obtain some limiting for ms of the nonlinear solutions. The MHD stability of these equilibria is exp licitly evaluated in some cases. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S 1070-664X(00)92005-6].