Collisional Damping of Electron Bernstein Waves and its Mitigation by Evaporated Lithium Conditioning in Spherical-Tokamak Plasmas

Journal Article · Fri Jul 03 00:00:00 EDT 2009 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.103.015002· OSTI ID:21347024

Diem, S J; Caughman, J B ^[1]; Taylor, G; Efthimion, P C; Kugel, H; LeBlanc, B P; Phillips, C K ^[2]; Preinhaelter, J; Urban, J ^[3]; Sabbagh, S A ^[4]

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1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge 37831, Tennessee (United States)
2. Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey 08543 (United States)
3. EURATOM/IPP.CR Association, Institute of Plasma Physics, 18200 Prague 8 (Czech Republic)
4. Columbia University, New York, New York 10027 (United States)

The first experimental verification of electron Bernstein wave (EBW) collisional damping, and its mitigation by evaporated Li conditioning, in an overdense spherical-tokamak plasma has been observed in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). Initial measurements of EBW emission, coupled from NSTX plasmas via double-mode conversion to O-mode waves, exhibited <10% transmission efficiencies. Simulations show 80% of the EBW energy is dissipated by collisions in the edge plasma. Li conditioning reduced the edge collision frequency by a factor of 3 and increased the fundamental EBW transmission to 60%.

• OSTI ID: 21347024
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 103, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.015002; (c) 2009 The American Physical Society; ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
BERNSTEIN MODE
ELECTRONS
EMISSION
LITHIUM
MODE CONVERSION
NSTX DEVICE
PLASMA
PLASMA WAVES
SIMULATION
SPHERICAL CONFIGURATION
ALKALI METALS
CLOSED PLASMA DEVICES
CONFIGURATION
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ELEMENTS
FERMIONS
LEPTONS
METALS
OSCILLATION MODES
SPHEROMAK DEVICES
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
TOKAMAK DEVICES