Did a little research to try and understand this better. The most precise term to describe the "twisted ribbon" flux tube in W7-X is "toroidal helix". The toro

Did a little research to try and understand this better. The most precise term to describe the "twisted ribbon" flux tube in W7-X is "toroidal helix". The toroidal quality comes from the general torus shape of the stellarator, and the helix quality comes from the twisting of the magnetic field by magnets. (The torus shape is required only topologically; look up the knotatron to see what I mean.) The "ribbon" we're talking about is properly called the flux tube. The flux tube is the volume created by the flux surface, which is where the magnetic field lines lie. A given volume of plasma contained within a flux tube should remain inside it, causing magnetic confinement of the plasma. The optimality of the confinement of the flux tube is expressed with the term "omnigeneity". Conceptually, a flux tube has onmigeneity if ideally all of the non-colliding plasma inside the tube stays in the tube. W7-X's flux tube appears to be approaching omnigenity. (Another experiment which approaches omnigenity is HSX. Interestingly, HSX has one set of primary magnets, whereas W7-X has two. That's likely because HSX achieves omnigenity via quasisymmetry, whereas W7-X uses various stellarator optimization techniques.) With these points, we can call the W7-X "ribbon" a near-omnigenous toroidal helix flux tube, which sounds way cooler. So, all that said, why is a helical property desired? From what I've read, the twist in the flux surface reduces plasma drift inside the flux tube. I think it makes sense to analogize this stuff as a circular semi-permeable pipe filled with a high-pressure "magic fluid" flowing around-and-around inside. By semi-permeable, it means fluid will leak from the pipe if the internal pressure is too high (remember that this is magic fluid). Trying to understand the helical twist along this analogy, I think the effect is evening of internal pressure across the pipe surface to reduce fluid turbulence and permeation while maximizing laminar flow. At least, that's my best analogous interpretation of "why" the twist helps. The divertors are useful for long-term reactor operation but have no direct relevance to the magnetic field geometry. I'm guessing there's two divertors for engineering reasons (performance, redundancy, etc.) and not for reasons of basic physics.