Ion Bernstein modes in current-carrying plasmas
Two aspects of ion Bernstein wave (IBW) propagation in current-carrying plasmas are studied. The first is the inclusion of an electron tail in addition to the Maxwellian background. The second is the modifications introduced by a shearless poloidal magnetic field. The former is studied in the electrostatic and electromagnetic cases. The tail gives rise to an increase in the electron Landau damping. The tail also causes a change in the sign of the electron susceptibility at certain parallel phase velocities of the wave. As a result, a normally evanescent model is now allowed to propagate and couple to the already existing IBW (in the electrostatic case), and both the IBW and fast wave (in the electromagnetic case). The presence of a poloidal field is studied by a considering a bounded homogeneous cylindrical plasma in the electrostatic limit. An integro-differential equation for the potential is obtained from the linearized Vlasov-Poisson set of equations. It was found that, for finite poloidal wave number, the radial dependence of the component of k perpendicular to the local B-field, gives rise to an effective centrifugal barrier which may prevent waves coming from the plasma edge to reach the center.
- Research Organization:
- California Univ., Los Angeles (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 6856500
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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