Merging-compression start-up in the Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak provides an opportunity to investigate the merging of flux ropes through magnetic reconnection, and the self-organization into a single flux rope, in a low-plasma-ß, high-Lundquist-number plasma. We present an overview of simulations of this process using the compressible Hall-MHD e…
In the merging-compression method of plasma start-up, two flux-ropes with parallel toroidal current are formed around in-vessel poloidal field coils, before merging to form a spherical tokamak plasma. This start-up method, used in the Mega-Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST), is studied as a high Lundquist number and low plasma-beta magnetic reconnecti…
