Kinetic effects in Alfven wave heating. Part II: Propagation and absorption with a single minority species

Journal Article · Fri Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1989 · Physics of Fluids B: Plasma Physics; (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.859171· OSTI ID:5147090

Li, W; Ross, D W; Mahajan, S M ^[1]

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1. Fusion Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712 (US)

The effects of a heavy minority on Alfven wave heating are examined in a linearized circular cylindrical tokamak model. It is shown that a suitable minority concentration and radially varying charge profile produces a two-ion hybrid resonance in the plasma interior and an Alfven wave resonance near the edge. The latter situation, which gives rise to cold plasma surface Alfven eigenmodes (SAE's), was described in Part I (Phys. Fluids B {bold 1}, 2353 (1989)) for a pure plasma. Here, numerical results, exhibiting substantial absorption in the hybrid layer as a result of the dissipation of these modes, are presented. It is shown that the poloidal mode number strongly affects the amount of the energy absorbed in the hybrid layer. Generally, electron heating due to electron Landau and collisional damping of SAE's and two-ion hybrid fields ({omega}{gt}({omega}{sub {ital c}2}){sub max}, with {omega}{sub {ital c}2} being the fundamental minority gyrofrequency) dominates minority heating excepting for cases when {ital k}{sub {parallel}}, the parallel wavenumber, is large enough that no SAE occurs near the plasma edge. For the larger {ital k}{sub {parallel}} system, there occurs a stronger coupling between the two-ion hybrid and fundamental minority gyroresonance layers, resulting in comparable electron and minority heating. The majority heating is zero everywhere because {omega}{lt}({omega}{sub {ital c}1}){sub min}, where {omega}{sub {ital c}1} is the fundamental majority gyrofrequency.

• OSTI ID: 5147090
• Journal Information: Physics of Fluids B: Plasma Physics; (USA), Journal Name: Physics of Fluids B: Plasma Physics; (USA) Vol. 1:12; ISSN 0899-8221; ISSN PFBPE
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700101* -- Fusion Energy-- Plasma Research-- Confinement
Heating
& Production
700103 -- Fusion Energy-- Plasma Research-- Kinetics
ABSORPTION
ALFVEN WAVES
CLOSED PLASMA DEVICES
COLD PLASMA
COLLISIONAL PLASMA
DAMPING
EQUATIONS
HEATING
HYDROMAGNETIC WAVES
KINETIC EQUATIONS
LANDAU DAMPING
PLASMA
PLASMA HEATING
RESONANCE ABSORPTION
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
TOKAMAK DEVICES