description

An important concept regarding the energy balance of the tokamak fusion reactor is the energy confinement time (\(\tau_E\)). It is the characteristic time of energy loss: \[P_{loss}= \dfrac{W_{pl}}{\tau_E}, \label{eq:tau}\] where \(P_{loss}\) is the power lost and \(W_{pl}\) is the total plasma energy. The energy confinement time is a global parameter of the confined plasma, and reaching higher values is of central interest of tokamak research.