Plasma confined by a magnetic dipole is stabilized, at low beta, by magnetic compressibility. The ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) requirements for stability against interchange and high-n ballooning modes are derived at arbitrary beta for a fusion grade laboratory plasma confined by a levitated dipole. A high beta MHD equilibrium is found numerically with a pressure profile near marginal stability for interchange modes, a peak local beta of β∼10, and volume averaged beta of β̄∼0.5. This equilibrium is demonstrated to be ballooning stable on all field lines.
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Garnier et al. (1999) studied this question.
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