Abstract: A high temperature plasma is magnetically confined without leaks or cusps in a smooth toroidal configuration by tangential magnetic field lines on its surface which have a zero rotation number, and include a selected finite even non-zero number of closed toroidal magnetic field lines, which are limit cycles in the sense that all other surface field lines are asympototic to neighboring pairs of these closed field lines, and the poloidal cross-section of the plasma is non-convex. The resulting unique structure makes the confined plasma relatively insensitive to approximations, tolerances, and variations in the parameters of design, construction and operation. Furthermore, use of the sense of averaging appropriate to evaluation of interchange instabilities shows that the resulting magnetic bottle is an optimal toroidal magnetic well.

Abstract: A high temperature plasma is confined in the shape of a topological torus by a topologically stable magnetic field which is everywhere constant on and tangent to the surface of the torus. There are exactly an even finite number of closed magnetic field lines on the plasma surface and all other magnetic field lines on the surface are asymptotic to the closed field lines. This magnetic field configuration is achieved by a set of current carrying conductors appropriately arranged with respect to the plasma and carrying suitably selected currents.