KEY FEATURES AND POTENTIAL OF STELLARATOR AND RFP

The paper, after recalling the main reasons underlying the European choice of developing Stellarators and Reverse Field Pinches in parallel to Tokamaks, summarizes the common features of toroidal confinement systems and outlines the basic differences between Tokamaks and alternative devices in terms of magnetic field and heating. For Stellarators, some general remarks are given about the characteristics of the configuration and a summary of the physics results obtained so far and of the near-term plans is presented; finally, some general comments about reactor relevance and associated issues are given. For Reverse Field Pinch devices, the paper gives a survey of the main features and key physical issues of that configuration, then it presents the main results, evidencing the need of larger experiments. A short description is given of RFX, the new RFP experiment recently come into operation, and its first results are presented; the long term perspectives of the RFP line are discussed. Finally, a general comment about technology development needs is given.