Skip to content

Audit unit conventions of PerturbedEquilibrium quantities #239

Description

@matt-pharr

The PR #196 review surfaced an obvious contradiction between two docstrings (map_forcing_to_eigenmodes vs ForcingMode), which has been reconciled in-PR. But a deeper question is unresolved: across the PerturbedEquilibrium pipeline, do the docstrings, code comments, and Fortran NetCDF unit attributes (e.g. Phi_x="Wb", Phi_xe="T") actually agree with the SI units produced by the literal calculation at each step?

We should do an end-to-end dimensional audit by tracing each quantity from raw SI inputs (B in T, lengths in m, currents in A) and checking what the operations actually multiply together — not by trusting any annotation along the way.

Scope, at minimum:

  • ForcingMode.amplitude and the full coil → Biot-Savart → project_normal_flux!fourier_decompose_bn chain
  • ASCII / HDF5 forcing file conventions and convert_forcing_normalization! (normal_field_T, sfl_flux_Wb → unit-norm)
  • Phi_x vs Phi_xe (and the ftop energy-norm transformation between them)
  • Phi_res / resonant_flux, delta_prime, island_half_width, Chirikov
  • Permeability and inductance matrices (Lambda, L, P, reluctance)
  • PE energies (plasma_energy, vacuum_energy, total_energy)

For each quantity, confirm SI units from the calculation and either correct the documented unit or correct the calculation as appropriate. Suggested deliverable: a unit-convention table in docs/src/perturbed_equilibrium.md that is authoritative for the codebase.

Context: discussed during the review of PR #196.

Activity

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

      Relationships

      None yet

      Development

      No branches or pull requests

      Issue actions