Full-wave analysis of ICRF plasma heating in inhomogeneous plasma

Thesis/Dissertation · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:5370622

Romero, H A

The linearized Vlasov-Maxwell set of equations is solved in a 1-D nonuniform plasma slab, assuming that the thermal gyroradius is much smaller than the local wavelength and that the direction of propagation is nearly-perpendicular to the equilibrium magnetic field. An analytic expression is obtained for the perturbed distribution function resulting in a form for the ICRF wave differential operator, which includes the physics of strong wave damping and linear-mode conversion. By retaining first-order drift terms in the equilibrium distribution function, the operator can be shown to become self-adjoint when the parallel wave number is set to zero. A power-conservation relation is obtained which regains the limit of weak wave damping when a WKB form is used for the wave fields. An algorithm is developed using a singular perturbation expansion to stabilize the exponentially growing component of the ion Bernstein wave on the low magnetic field side of the tokamak and obtain numerically stable solutions for the ICRF fields through the cyclotron resonance region. The ICRF (H)-D fundamental minority heating scheme is investigated for JET equilibrium parameters. Substantial differences are found with those obtained from a WKB formalism.

• Research Organization: Wisconsin Univ., Madison (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5370622
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700101* -- Fusion Energy-- Plasma Research-- Confinement
Heating
& Production
BERNSTEIN MODE
CLOSED PLASMA DEVICES
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
DISTRIBUTION FUNCTIONS
EQUATIONS
FUNCTIONS
HEATING
HIGH-FREQUENCY HEATING
ICR HEATING
INHOMOGENEOUS PLASMA
MAXWELL EQUATIONS
ONE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
OSCILLATION MODES
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
PLASMA
PLASMA HEATING
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
TOKAMAK DEVICES
WKB APPROXIMATION