Comparison of ATF and TJ-II stellarator equilibria as computed by the 3-D VMEC and PIES codes

Abstract A comparison is made of results from the PIES code, which determines the equilibrium properties of three-dimensional toroidal configurations by direct integration along the magnetic field lines, with those from the VMEC code, which uses an energy minimization in a flux representation to determine the equilibrium configuration, for two devices: the ATF stellarator at Oak Ridge and the TJ-II heliac which is being built in Madrid. The results obtained from the two codes are in good agreement, providing additional validation for the codes.