Since the tokamak concept gained recognition in 1968, steady progress has been made towards its development into a viable fusion core for a thermonuclear reactor. The paper summarizes the present status of tokamak research, concentrating on physics aspects relating to the operational domain in current, density and pressure; plasma activity and relaxation phenomena; the principles, strengths and weaknesses of plasma heating techniques; global and local plasma confinement and the various regimes of enhanced confinement identified so far; the potential and limitations of fuelling, impurity control and exhaust systems; and, finally, the performance of non-inductive current drive schemes.
トカマク概念が1968年に認知されて以来、熱核融合炉の実用可能な核心へと発展させるための着実な進歩が続けられてきた。本論文は、トカマク研究の現状を要約し、電流、密度、圧力における運転領域に関連する物理的側面、プラズマ活動と緩和現象、プラズマ加熱技術の原理、長所、短所、全体および局所的なプラズマ閉じ込めとこれまでに特定された様々な改善閉じ込め領域、燃料供給、不純物制御、排気システムの可能性と限界、そして最後に非誘導電流駆動方式の性能に焦点を当てている。