Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2011
The toroidal precession of circulating particles in tokamaks is studied numerically. The dependence of the precession frequency on the magnetic shear, the elongation of the plasma cross-section, and plasma pressure is investigated. It is concluded that the analytical expressions for the precession frequency by Kolesnichenko et al. (2003 Phys. Plasmas10, 1449–1457) represent a reasonable approximation for the limit cases of tokamaks with circular cross-section and shearless tokamaks with elliptical cross-section. The precession frequency was calculated for non-circular tokamaks with magnetic shear. Based on the numerical results, an interpolation formula for the precession frequency is proposed.