The quasilinear model of electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) heating in a mirror magnetic field predicts essential broadening of the electron distribution function in case of bichromatic wave. This may stabilize kinetic instabilities in the electron-cyclotron frequency range resulting in improved performance of ECR ion sources, the effect which is observed in many independent experiments.
In a grid-less Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) plasma thruster with a diverging magnetic nozzle, the magnitude of the ambipolar field accelerating the positive ions depends of the perpendicular energy gained by the electrons. This work investigates the heating of the electrons by electromagnetic waves, taking their bouncing motion into account in a confining well formed by the magnetic mirror force and the electrostatic potential of the thruster. An electromagnetic Particle-In-Cell (PIC) code is used to simulate the plasma in a magnetic field tube. The code's Maxwell solver is based on a se…
Non-Inductive Current Start-Up Using Multi-Harmonic Electron Cyclotron Wave and Current Ramp-Up Through Combined Electron Cyclotron Wave and Ohmic Heating in EXL-50U Spherical Torus
13MW of electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) power deposited inside the q = 1 surface is likely to reduce the sawtooth period in ITER baseline scenario below the level empirically predicted to trigger neo-classical tearing modes (NTMs). However, since the ECCD control scheme is solely predicated upon changing the local magnetic shear, it is prudent to plan to use a complementary scheme which directly decreases the potential energy of the kink mode in order to reduce the sawtooth period. In the event that the natural sawtooth period is longer than expected, due to enhanced alpha particle sta…
The Material Plasma Exposure eXperiment (MPEX) is a steady state linear device with the goal to perform plasma material interaction (PMI) studies at future fusion reactor relevant conditions. A prototype of MPEX referred as Porto-MPEX is designed to carry out research and development related to source, heating and transport concepts on the planned full MPEX device. The auxiliary heating schemes in MPEX are based on cyclotron resonance heating with radio frequency (RF) waves. Ion cyclotron heating (ICH) and electron cyclotron heating (ECH) in MPEX are used to independently heat the ions and ele…
This paper summarizes the results of experiments on electron cyclotron emission (ECE) measurements at the fundamental harmonic recently performed at the axially symmetric magnetic mirror device GDT (Budker Institute, Novosibirsk). New ECE diagnostics is installed to facilitate the successful electron cyclotron resonance heating experiment and operates in the vicinity of the heating frequency of 54.5 GHz. Besides expected emission of thermal electrons, a clearly resolved non-thermal ECE is observed indicating the presence of suprathermal electrons driven by high-power microwave heating. The par…
Impurity particle transport in an ion cyclotron resonance heated Alcator C-Mod discharge is studied with local gyrokinetic simulations and a theoretical model including the effect of poloidal asymmetries and elongation. In spite of the strong minority temperature anisotropy in the deep core region, the poloidal asymmetries are found to have a negligible effect on the turbulent impurity transport due to low magnetic shear in this region, in agreement with the experimental observations. According to the theoretical model, in outer core regions poloidal asymmetries may contribute to the reduction…
Non-linear local electromagnetic gyrokinetic turbulence simulations of the ITER standard scenario H-mode are presented for the q=3/2 and q=2 surfaces. The turbulent transport is examined in regions of velocity space characteristic of electrons heated by electron cyclotron waves. Electromagnetic fluctuations and sub-dominant micro-tearing modes are found to contribute significantly to the transport of the accelerated electrons, even though they have only a small impact on the transport of the bulk species. The particle diffusivity for resonant passing electrons is found to be less than 0.15 m^2…
Measurements are reported of electromagnetic emission close to the cyclotron frequency of energetic ions in JET plasmas heated by waves in the ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF). Hydrogen was the majority ion species in all of these plasmas. The measurements were obtained using a sub-harmonic arc detection (SHAD) system in the transmission lines of one of the ICRF antennas. The measured ion cyclotron emission (ICE) spectra were strongly filtered by the antenna system, and typically contained sub-structure, consisting of sets of peaks with a separation of a few kHz, suggesting the excita…
The dissipation of magnetized turbulence is an important paradigm for describing heating and energy transfer in astrophysical environments such as the solar corona and wind; however, the specific collisionless processes behind dissipation and heating remain relatively unconstrained by measurements. Remote sensing observations have suggested the presence of strong temperature anisotropy in the solar corona consistent with cyclotron resonant heating. In the solar wind, in situ magnetic field measurements reveal the presence of cyclotron waves, while measured ion velocity distribution functions h…
The ITER ICRF system will gain in complexity relative to the existing systems on modern devices, and the same will hold true for DEMO. The accumulated experience can help greatly in designing an ICRF system for DEMO. In this paper the current status of the pre-conceptual design of the DEMO ICRF antenna and some related components is presented. While many aspects strongly resemble the ITER system, in some design solutions we had to take an alternative route to be able to adapt to DEMO specific. One of the key points is the toroidal antenna extent needed for the requested ICRF heating performanc…
The principal objective of this work is to report on the power coupled to a tungsten target in the Proto-MPEX device during oblique injection of a microwave beam (< 70 kW at 28 GHz) into a high-power (~100 kW at 13.56 MHz) over-dense (n_e>1E10^19 m^(-3)) deuterium helicon plasma column. The experimental setup, electron heating system, electron heating scheme, and IR thermographic diagnostic for quantifying the power transport is described in detail. It is demonstrated that the power transported to the target can be effectively controlled by adjusting the magnetic field profile. Using this meth…
Electron dynamics in Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source is numerically simulated by using Particle-In-Cell code combined with simulations of the ion dynamics. Mean electron energies are found to be around 70 keV close to values that are derived from spectra of X-ray emission out of the source. Electron life time is defined by losses of low-energy electrons created in ionizing collisions; the losses are regulated by electron heating rate, which depends on magnitude of the microwave electric field. Changes in ion confinement with variations in the microwave electric field and gas flow are s…
In the innermost regions of low-luminosity accretion flows, including Sgr A* at the center of our Galaxy, the frequency of Coulomb collisions is so low that the plasma is two-temperature, with the ions substantially hotter than the electrons. This paradigm assumes that Coulomb collisions are the only channel for transferring the ion energy to the electrons. In this work, the second of a series, we assess the efficiency of electron heating by ion velocity-space instabilities in collisionless accretion flows. The instabilities are seeded by the pressure anisotropy induced by magnetic field ampli…
The local magnetic field in a Penning-Malmberg trap is found by measuring the temperatures that result when electron plasmas are illuminated by microwaves pulses. Multiple heating resonances are observed as the pulse frequencies are swept. The many resonances are due to electron bounce and plasma rotation sidebands. The heating peak corresponding to the cyclotron frequency resonance is identified to determine the magnetic field. A new method for quickly preparing low density electron plasmas for destructive temperature measurements enables a rapid and automated scan of microwave frequencies. T…
In systems accreting well below the Eddington rate, the plasma in the innermost regions of the disk is collisionless and two-temperature, with the ions hotter than the electrons. Yet, whether a collisionless faster-than-Coulomb energy transfer mechanism exists in two-temperature accretion flows is still an open question. We study the physics of electron heating during the growth of ion velocity-space instabilities, by means of multi-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. A large-scale compression - embedded in a novel form of the PIC equations - continuously amplifies the field. This …
Turbulence characteristics of electron cyclotron (EC) and ohmic heated (OH) discharges has been analyzed by electrostatic gyrokinetic simulations with GYRO [J. Candy, R.E. Waltz, Journal of Computational Physics 186, 545-581 (2003)] aiming to find insights into the effect of auxiliary heating on the transport. Trapped electron modes are found to be unstable in both OH and the EC heated scenarios. In the OH case the main drive is from the density gradient and in the EC case from the electron temperature gradient. The growth rates and particle fluxes exhibit qualitatively different scaling with …
The theory of the ion cyclotron (IC) electrostatic parametric instabilities of plasma which are driven by the elliptically polarized fast wave (FW) of the finite wavelength is developed. The growth rate of the IC quasimode decay instability, which was considered as a potential source of the generation of the high energy ions in scrape-off layer (SOL) during FW injection in tokamaks, is derived analytically for arbitrary values of the FW electric field and wavelengths of the unstable IC perturbations. The comprehensive numerical analysis of the dispersion equation for three wave system which co…
The paper reports on a new plasma startup scenario in the Gas Dynamic Trap (GDT) magnetic mirror device. The primary 5 MW neutral beam injection (NBI) plasma heating system fires into a sufficiently dense plasma target ("seed plasma"), which is commonly supplied by an arc plasma generator. In the reported experiments, a different approach to seed plasma generation is explored. One of the channels of the electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) heating system is used to ionize the neutral gas and build up the density of plasma to a level suitable for NBI capture. After a short transition (about 1 ms)…
We report the first experimental evidence of a controlled transition from the generation of periodic bursts of electromagnetic emission into continuous wave regime of a cyclotron maser formed in magnetically confined non-equilibrium plasmas. The kinetic cyclotron instability of the extraordinary wave of weakly inhomogeneous magnetized plasma is driven by the anisotropic electron population resulting from electron cyclotron plasma heating in MHD-stable minimum-B open magnetic trap.
The start-up and sustainment of a stochastic wave non-inductive current on a spherical torus was experimentally demonstrated for the first time using only electron cyclotron waves. The plasma current is insensitive to the injection angle of ECWs and approximately linearly correlated with the slope of the X-ray spectrum. Its direction is determined by the vertical magnetic field (BV). The temporal development in the number of X-ray bremsstrahlung photons with a specified energy is consistent with the stochastic heating model. Moreover, the ratio of Amps to Watts of the ECW is generally >1 kA/kW…
A new synergy mechanism between Ohkawa current drive (OKCD) of electron cyclotron (EC) waves and lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) is discovered and discussed. And the methodology to achieve this synergy effect is also introduced. Improvement of OKCD efficiency can be achieved up to a factor of ~ 2.5 in far off-axis radial region (\r{ho} > 0.6) of tokamak plasmas. Making EC wave heating the electrons of co-Ip direction and LH wave heating the electrons of counter-Ip direction, the mechanism of this new synergy effect comes from the results of electron trapping and detrapping processes. The OKC…
Extra Ordinary (X) mode conversion to Bernstein wave near Upper Hybrid Resonance (UHR) layer plays an important role in plasma heating through cyclotron resonance. Wave generation at UHR and parametric decay at high power has been observed during Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) heating experiments in toroidal magnetic fusion devices. A small linear system with ECR and UHR layer within the system has been used to conduct experiments on X-B conversion and parametric decay process as a function of system parameters. Direct probing {\em in situ} is conducted and plasma heating is evidenced by s…
We perform 2.5D hybrid simulations with massless fluid electrons and kinetic particle-in-cell ions to study the temporal evolution of ion temperatures, temperature anisotropies and velocity distribution functions in relation to the dissipation and turbulent evolution of a broad-band spectrum of parallel and obliquely propagating Alfvén-cyclotron waves. The purpose of this paper is to study the relative role of parallel versus oblique Alfvén-cyclotron waves in the observed heating and acceleration of minor ions in the fast solar wind. We consider collisionless homogeneous multi-species plasma, …
How ions are energized and heated is a fundamental problem in the study of energy dissipation in magnetized plasmas. In particular, the heating of heavy ions (including ${}^{4}\mathrm{He}^{2+}$, ${}^{3}\mathrm{He}^{2+}$ and others) has been a constant concern for understanding the microphysics of impulsive solar flares. In this article, via two-dimensional hybrid-kinetic Particle-in-Cell simulations, we study the heating of Helium ions (${}^{4}\mathrm{He}^{2+}$) by turbulence driven by cascading waves launched at large scales from the left-handed polarized Helium ion cyclotron wave branch of a…
Remote sensing observations of coronal holes show that heavy ions are hotter than protons and their temperature is anisotropic. In-situ observations of fast solar wind streams provide direct evidence for turbulent Alfvén wave spectrum, left-hand polarized ion-cyclotron waves, and He$^{++}$ -- proton drift in the solar wind plasma, which can produce temperature anisotropies by resonant absorption and perpendicular heating of the ions. Furthermore, the solar wind is expected to be inhomogeneous on decreasing scales approaching the Sun. We study the heating of solar wind ions in inhomogeneous pla…
Anisotropic Maxwell neural operator for rapid parametric full-wave modelling of ion cyclotron resonance heating
Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications（重庆邮电大学）；University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；Xidian University（西安电子科技大学）；Institute of Plasma Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院合肥物质科学研究院等离子体物理研究所）
Propagation of an extraordinary electromagnetic wave in the vicinity of electron cyclotron resonance surface in an open linear trap is studied analytically, taking into account inhomogeneity of the magnetic field in paraxial approximation. Ray trajectories are derived from a reduced dispersion equation that makes it possible to avoid the difficulty associated with a transition from large propagation angles to the case of strictly longitudinal propagation. Our approach is based on the theory, originally developed by the Zvonkov and Timofeev [1], who used the paraxial approximation for the magne…
The SWICS instrument aboard the ACE satellite has detected frequent intervals in the slow solar wind and interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) in which C6+ and other fully stripped ions are strongly depleted, though the ionization states of elements such as Si and Fe indicate that those ions should be present. It has been suggested that these outlier or dropout events can be explained by the resonant cyclotron heating process, because these ions all have the same cyclotron frequency as He2+. We investigate the region in the corona where these outlier events form. It must be above the i…
The two-frequency heating technique was studied to increase the beam intensities of highly charged ions provided by the high-voltage extraction configuration (HEC) ion source at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS). The observed dependences on microwave power and frequency suggested that this technique improved plasma stability but it required precise frequency tuning and more microwave power than was available before 2013. Recently, a new, high-power (1200 W) wide bandwidth (17.1-18.5 GHz) travelling-wave-tube amplifier (TWTA) was installed. After some single tests with klys…
The design of the WEST (Tungsten-W Environment in Steady-state Tokamak) Ion cyclotron resonance heating antennas is based on a previously tested conjugate-T Resonant Double Loops prototype equipped with internal vacuum matching capacitors. The design and construction of three new WEST ICRH antennas are being carried out in close collaboration with ASIPP, within the framework of the Associated Laboratory in the fusion field between IRFM and ASIPP. The coupling performance to the plasma and the load-tolerance have been improved, while adding Continuous Wave operation capability by introducing wa…
We study the turbulent transport of an ion cyclotron resonance heated (ICRH), MeV range minority ion species in tokamak plasmas. Such highly energetic minorities, which can be produced in the three ion minority heating scheme [Ye. O. Kazakov et al. (2015) Nucl. Fusion 55, 032001], have been proposed to be used to experimentally study the confinement properties of fast ions without the generation of fusion alphas. We compare the turbulent transport properties of ICRH ions with that of fusion born alpha particles. Our theoretical predictions indicate that care must be taken when conclusions are …
Nonlinear simulation model for radio frequency (RF) waves in fusion plasmas has been developed and verified using fully kinetic ion and drift kinetic electron. Ion cyclotron motion in the toroidal geometry is implemented using Boris push in the Boozer coordinates. Linear dispersion relation and nonlinear particle trapping are verified for the lower hybrid (LH) wave and ion Bernstein wave (IBW). Parametric decay instability is observed where a large amplitude pump wave decays into an IBW sideband and an ion cyclotron quasimode (ICQM). The ICQM induces an ion perpendicular heating with a heating…
A review is given for cyclotron resonant interactions in space plasmas. After giving a simple formulation for the test particle approach, illustrative examples for resonant interactions are given. It is shown that for obliquely propagating whistler waves, not only fundamental cyclotron resonance, but also other resonances, such as transit-time resonance, anomalous cyclotron resonance, higher-harmonic cyclotron resonance, and even subharmonic resonance can come into play. A few recent topics of cyclotron resonant interactions, such as electron injection in shocks, cyclotron resonant heating of …
The motion of an ion in a coherent lower hybrid wave (characterized by |k_parallel| << |k_perp| and omega >> Omega_i) in a tokamak plasma is studied. For ions satisfying v_perp > omega/k_perp, the Lorentz force law for the ions is reduced to a set of difference equations which give the Larmor radius and phase of an ion on one cyclotron orbit in terms of these quantities a cyclotron period earlier. From these difference equations an earlier result [Phys. Fluids 21, 1584 (1978)] that above a certain wave amplitude the ion motion is stochastic, is readily obtained. The stochasticity threshold is …
In non-inverted heating scenarios, a lower hybrid (LH) resonance can appear in the plasma edge of tokamaks. This resonance can lead to large edge power deposition when heating in the ion cyclotron resonance frequency (ICRF) range. In this paper, the edge power loss associated with this LH resonance is analytically computed for a cold plasma description using an asymptotic approach and analytical continuation. This power loss can be directly linked to the local radial electric field and is then compared to the corresponding power loss computed with the semi-analytical code ANTITER IV. This meth…
In this paper, a reduced model of quasilinear diffusion by a small Larmor radius approximation is derived to couple the Maxwell's equations and the Fokker-Planck equation self-consistently for ion cyclotron range of frequency waves in a tokamak. The reduced model ensures the important properties of the full model by Kennel-Engelmann diffusion, such as diffusion directions, wave polarizations, and H-theorem. The kinetic energy change (W-dot) is used to derive the reduced model diffusion coefficients for the fundamental damping and the second harmonic damping to the lowest order of the finite La…
Electromagnetic radiation is strongly absorbed by the magnetized plasma if its frequency equals the cyclotron frequency of plasma electrons. It is demonstrated that absorption can be completely canceled in the presence of a second radiation beam, or even a magnetostatic field of an undulator, resulting in plasma transparency at the cyclotron frequency. This effect is reminiscent of the electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) of the three-level atomic systems, except that it occurs in a completely {\it classical} plasma. Also, because of the complexity of the classical plasma, index of r…
The gyrotron is the high power millimeter wave source in the electron cyclotron resonance heating system for the tokamak. The cathode power supply is one of the most important ancillary devices for gyrotron. Some interesting transient phenomena about the cathode voltage and the cathode current was found in the gyrotron operation in the electron cyclotron resonance heating system for the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak. The cathode voltage drops to about 10% of the original value by about 90 μs in the overcurrent case, which is much longer than the 25 μs in the normal case. In ord…
The measured spectrum of kinetic Alfven wave fluctuations in the turbulent solar wind plasma is used to calculate the electron and ion distribution functions resulting from quasi-linear diffusion. The modified ion distribution function is found to be unstable to long wavelength electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves. These waves pitch angle scatter the parallel ion velocity into perpendicular velocity which effectively increases the perpendicular ion temperature.
Recently, S Patil et al. have reported the existence of an enhanced operating regime when a low-pressure (5 mTorr) capacitively coupled discharge (CCP) is driven by a very high radio-frequency (60 MHz) source in the presence of a weak external magnetic field applied parallel to its electrodes. Their Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations show, that a significantly higher bulk plasma density and ion flux can be achieved at the electrode when the electron cyclotron frequency equals half of the applied RF frequency for a given fixed voltage. In the present work we take a detailed look at this phenome…
Parametric instabilities of the inhomogeneous near SOL tokamak plasma, driven by the coupled effect of the high harmonic fast wave and of the ion and electron temperatures gradients, and anomalous heating of the near SOL ions
Plasma Research Center, Pusan National University（釜山国立大学等离子体研究中心）；Department of Electrical Engineering, Pusan National University（釜山国立大学电气工程系）
The interaction of dense plasmas with an intense laser under a strong external magnetic field has been investigated. When the cyclotron frequency for the ambient magnetic field is higher than the laser frequency, the laser's electromagnetic field is converted to the whistler mode that propagates along the field line. Because of the nature of the whistler wave, the laser light penetrates into dense plasmas with no cutoff density, and produces superthermal electrons through cyclotron resonance. It is found that the cyclotron resonance absorption occurs effectively under the broadened conditions,…
Three-dimensional numerical model is developed and applied for studies of physical processes in Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source. The model includes separate modules that simulate the electron and ion dynamics in the source plasma in an iterative way. The electron heating by microwaves is simulated by using results of modelling the microwave propagation in the plasma by the COMSOL Multiphysics software. Extracted ion currents and other parameters of the source are obtained for different gas flows into the source. It is observed that the currents are strongly influenced by ion transport …
National Institute for Fusion Science（国立研究开发法人核融合科学研究所）；Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo（东京大学前沿科学研究生院）；National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology（国立研究开发法人量子科学技术研究开发机构）；Chubu University（中部大学）；Kyoto Fusioneering Ltd.（京都聚变工程有限公司）
The kinetic evolution of the Orszag-Tang vortex is studied using collisionless hybrid simulations. In the magnetohydrodynamic regime this vortex leads rapidly to broadband turbulence. Significant differences from MHD arise at small scales, where the fluid scale energy dissipates into heat almost exclusively through the magnetic field because the protons are decoupled from the magnetic field. Although cyclotron resonance is absent, the protons heat preferentially in the plane perpendicular to the mean field, as in the corona and solar wind. Effective transport coefficients are calculated.
The understanding of the outward radial transport of heat in magnetic confinement fusion devices is a priority for the development of economically viable fusion reactors. Here, we analyze the radial propagation of spontaneously generated electron temperature (T_e) fluctuations measured using the Electron Cyclotron Emission (ECE) diagnostic in Wendelstein 7-X, which disposes of 32 channels, covering a large part of the plasma minor radius. By applying a relatively new statistical analysis technique (the Transfer Entropy), the present work provides, for the first time, a view of the detailed mec…
