The three-dimensional particle-in-cell model NAM-ECRIS is used for investigation of how the DECRIS-PM Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source is reacting to changes in the source magnetic configuration. The accent is made on changes in the magnetic field at the magnetic trap center, the minimum-B value. It is calculated that the optimal normalized value of the field is ~0.8, close to the experimental observations. The reasons for existence of the optimum are discussed. It is observed that the electron energies are increasing with the increased minimum-B values due to enhanced confinement of the energetic electrons in the plasma. Bumps in energy spectra of the radially lost electrons are observed and explained to be due to nonadiabatic losses of electrons.
Processes of the secondary electron emission (SEE) from the walls are included into the Numerical Advanced Model of Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Sources (NAM-ECRIS). It is found that SEE strongly influences electron confinement time and ion production. With the modified model, we observe reactions of the source to changes in a gas flow into the source and in an injected microwave power. The source performance with scaling the hexapole magnetic field is investigated. The calculated tendencies are close to the experimental observations.
Important features of Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source (ECRIS) operation are accurately reproduced with a numerical code. The code uses the particle-in-cell technique to model a dynamics of ions in ECRIS plasma. It is shown that gas dynamical ion confinement mechanism is sufficient to provide the ion production rates in ECRIS close to the experimentally observed values. Extracted ion currents are calculated and compared to the experiment for few sources. Changes in the extracted ion currents are obtained with varying the gas flow into the source chamber and the microwave power. Empirica…
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 …
The Numerical Advanced Model of Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source (NAM-ECRIS) is applied for studies of the physical processes in the source. Solutions of separately operating electron and ion modules of NAM-ECRIS are matched in iterative way such as to obtain the spatial distributions of the plasma density and of the plasma potential. Results reveal the complicated profiles with the maximized plasma density close to the ECR surface and on the source axis. The ion-trapping potential dips are calculated to be on the level of ~(0.01-0.05) V being located at the plasma density maxima. The h…
The analytical treatment of nonlinear evolution of the shear-flow-modified current driven ion cyclotron instability and shear-flow-driven ion cyclotron kinetic instabilities of magnetic field--aligned plasma shear flow is presented. Analysis is performed on the base of the nonlinear dispersion equation, which accounts for a new combined effect of plasma turbulence and shear flow. It consists in turbulent scattering of ions across the shear flow with their convection by shear flow and results in enhanced nonlinear broadening of ion cyclotron resonances. This effect is found to lead to the satur…
Fundamental studies of excitation and non-linear evolution of kinetic instabilities of strongly nonequlibrium hot plasmas confined in open magnetic traps suggest new opportunities for fine-tuning of conventional electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion sources. These devices are widely used for the production of particle beams of high charge state ions. Operating the ion source in controlled turbulence regime allows increasing the absorbed power density and therefore the volumetric plasma energy content in the dense part of the discharge surrounded by the ECR surface, which leads to enhanced bea…
The output of highly charged ions from an electron cyclotron resonance ion source (ECRIS) consists of ionic losses from a highly confined plasma. Therefore, an increase of the output of the ions of interest always is a compromise between an increase in the confinement and an increase of the losses.One route towards a solution consists of attacking the losses in directions (i.e., radial directions) that do not contribute to the required output. This was demonstrated in an experiment (using the Kei ECRIS at NIRS, Japan) where radial losses were electrostatically reduced by positively biasing one…
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 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.
The current-driven electrostatic ion-cyclotron (EIC) instability is studied in presence of a transverse dc electric fields in a collisional magnetized dusty plasma. We derive the appropriate charging equation self consistently by using the Vlasov equation.
The electrostatic shear-flow-driven ion cyclotron instability of magnetic field aligned sheared plasma flow is investigated analytically. It is shown that the shear-flow-driven electrostatic ion cyclotron instability can be considered as a combination of three different instabilities determined by theirs own mechanism of excitation: ion-kinetic, ion-hydrodynamic and electron-kinetic. Each of these instabilities are dominant in different ranges of the wavelength along the magnetic field. The linearized dispersion equation is solved within the limits of long and short waves along the magnetic fi…
The external and independent control of plasma flow velocity shears parallel and perpendicular to magnetic field lines is realized using segmented collisionless-plasma sources. Electrostatic ion-cyclotron instabilities are observed to be suppressed by the perpendicular flow velocity shears, the suppression physics of which is found to be distinguished into two aspects. On the other hand, the parallel flow velocity shears are demonstrated to destabilize the ion-cyclotron instabilities depending on the sign of the parallel shear in the absence of field-aligned electron drift flow.
The complex magnetic field of the permanent-magnet electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source MEFISTO located at the University of Bern have been numerically simulated. For the first time the magnetized volume qualified for electron cyclotron resonance at 2.45 GHz and 87.5 mT has been analyzed in highly detailed 3D simulations with unprecedented resolution. New results were obtained from the numerical simulation of 25211 electron trajectories. The evident characteristic ion sputtering trident of hexapole confined ECR sources has been identified with the field and electron trajectory distrib…
Ion cyclotron emission (ICE) offers unique promise as a diagnostic of the fusion born alpha-particle population in magnetically confined plasmas. Pioneering observations from JET and TFTR found that ICE intensity $P_{ICE}$ scales approximately linearly with the measured neutron flux from fusion reactions, and with the inferred concentration, $n_α/n_i$, of fusion-born alpha-particles confined within the plasma. We present fully nonlinear self-consistent kinetic simulations that reproduce this scaling for the first time. This resolves a longstanding question in the physics of fusion alpha-partic…
Ion cyclotron resonance is one of the fundamental energy conversion processes through field-particle interaction in collisionless plasmas. However, the key evidence for ion cyclotron resonance (i.e., the coherence between electromagnetic fields and the ion phase space density) and the resulting damping of ion cyclotron waves (ICWs) has not yet been directly observed. Investigating the high-quality measurements of space plasmas by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) satellites, we find that both the wave electromagnetic field vectors and the bulk velocity of the disturbed ion velocity distribut…
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…
Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Sources (ECRIS) progressed to higher and higher ion currents and charge states by adopting stronger magnetic fields (beneficial for confinement) and proportionally higher ECR frequencies. Further improvements would require the attainment of "triple products" of density, temperature and confinement time comparable with major fusion experiments. For this, we propose a new, toroidal rather than linear, ECRIS geometry, which would at the same time improve confinement and make better use of the magnetic field. Ion extraction is more complicated than from a linear de…
A synthesis technology of endohedral fullerenes such as Fe@C60 has developed with an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source. The production of N@C60 was reported. However, the yield was quite low, since most fullerene molecules were broken in the ECR plasma. We have adopted gas-mixing techniques in order to cool the plasma and then reduce fullerene dissociation. Mass spectra of ion beams extracted from fullerene-He, Ar or Xe mixed plasmas were observed with a Faraday cup. From the results, the He gas mixing technique is effective against fullerene destruction.
The theory of the ion cyclotron (IC) electrostatic parametric instabilities of the inhomogeneous plasma which are driven by the inhomogeneous electric field of the fast wave (FW) in front of FW antenna is developed. It is found that the spatial inhomogeneity of the parametric IC turbulence and of the drift turbulence is at the origin of the flows which transport a large part of FW power, deposited to the pedestal plasma, to the scrape-off layer and later to the divertor mostly along field lines.
Ion cyclotron emission (ICE) is detected during edge localised modes (ELMs) in the KSTAR tokamak at harmonics of the proton cyclotron frequency in the outer plasma edge. The emission typically chirps downward (occasionally upward) during ELM crashes, and is driven by confined 3MeV fusion-born protons that have large drift excursions from the plasma core. We exploit fully kinetic simulations at multiple plasma densities to match the time-evolving features of the chirping ICE. This yields a unique, very high time resolution diagnostic of the collapsing edge pedestal density.
Ion cyclotron emission (ICE) was the first collective radiative instability, driven by confined fusion-born ions, observed from deuterium-tritium plasmas in JET and TFTR. ICE comprises strongly suprathermal emission, which has spectral peaks at multiple ion cyclotron harmonic frequencies as evaluated at the outer mid-plane edge of tokamak plasmas. The measured intensity of ICE spectral peaks scaled linearly with measured fusion reactivity in JET. In other large tokamak plasmas, ICE is currently used as an indicator of fast ions physics. The excitation mechanism for ICE is the magnetoacoustic c…
In this paper, we develop the kinetic and hydrodynamic theories of the convective mesoscale flows driven by the spatially inhomogeneous electrostatic ion cyclotron parametric microturbulence in the pedestal plasma with a sheared poloidal flow. The developed kinetic theory predicts the generation of the sheared poloidal convective flow, and of the radial compressed flow with radial flow velocity gradient. The developed hydrodynamic theory of the convective flows reveals the radial compressed convective flow as the dominant factor in the formation of the steep pedestal density profile with densi…
Using linear Vlasov theory of plasma waves and quasi-linear theory of resonant wave-particle interaction, the dispersion relations and the electromagnetic field fluctuations of fast and Alfven waves are studied for a low-beta multi-ion plasma in the inner corona. Their probable roles in heating and accelerating the solar wind via Landau and cyclotron resonances are quantified. We assume that (1) low-frequency Alfven and fast waves have the same spectral shape and the same amplitude of power spectral density; (2) these waves eventually reach ion cyclotron frequencies due to a turbulence cascade…
The behaviour of a collisional plasma which is optically thin to cyclotron radiation is considered, and the distribution functions accessible to it on the various timescales in the system are calculated. Particular attention is paid to the limit in which the collision time exceeds the radiation emission time, making the electron distribution function strongly anisotropic. Unusually for plasma physics, the collision operator can nevertheless be calculated analytically although the plasma is far from Maxwellian. The rate of radiation emission is calculated and found to be governed by the collisi…
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…
Electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves are known to exhibit frequency chirping, contributing to the rapid scattering and acceleration of energetic particles. However, the physical mechanism of chirping remains elusive. Here, we propose a new model to explain the chirping and provide direct observational evidence for validation. Our results relate the frequency chirping of the wave to both the wave amplitude and magnetic field inhomogeneity for the first time. The general applicability of the model's underlying principle opens a new path toward understanding the frequency chirping of other waves.
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…
Time Series Extrinsic Regression of Ion Cyclotron Emission Spectra Trained on Particle-In-Cell Simulations
York Plasma Institute, University of York（约克等离子体研究所，约克大学）；UK Atomic Energy Authority（英国原子能管理局）；Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, University of Warwick（聚变、太空与天体物理中心，华威大学）
本文通过在粒子-细胞模拟上训练时间序列外回归模型，实现了离子回旋发射光谱中 bulk 和 fast 离子参数的实时恢复，展示了该方法在磁约束等离子体诊断中的应用潜力。
In this report, we describe characteristics of a ring-structure hydrogen plasma heated in electron cyclotron resonance conditions and confined in a mirror magnetic trap and discuss the relative efficiency of secondary electrons and thermoelectrons in negative hydrogen and deuterium ion production. The obtained data and calculations of the balance equations for possible reactions demonstrate that the negative ion production is realized in two stages. First, the hydrogen and deuterium molecules are excited in collisions with the plasma electrons to high-laying Rydberg or vibrational levels in th…
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…
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 …
We derive an equation whose solutions describe self-consistent states of marginal stability for a proton-electron plasma interacting with parallel-propagating ion cyclotron waves. Ion cyclotron waves propagating through this marginally stable plasma will neither grow nor damp. The dispersion relation of these waves, ω (k), smoothly rises from the usual MHD behavior at small |k| to reach ω = Ωp as k \rightarrow \pm\infty. The proton distribution function has constant phase-space density along the characteristic resonant surfaces defined by this dispersion relation. Our equation contains a free …
Photoelectron emission measurements have been performed using a room-temperature 14 GHz ECR ion source. It is shown that the photoelectron emission from Al, Cu, and stainless steel (SAE 304) surfaces, which are common plasma chamber materials, is predominantly caused by radiation emitted from plasma with energies between 8 eV and 1 keV. Characteristic X-ray emission and bremsstrahlung from plasma have a negligible contribution to the photoelectron emission. It is estimated from the measured data that the maximum conceivable photoelectron flux from plasma chamber walls is on the order of 10 % o…
Fast particle-driven waves in the ion cyclotron frequency range (ion cyclotron emission or ICE) have provided a valuable diagnostic of confined and escaping fast ions in many tokamaks. This is a passive, non-invasive diagnostic that would be compatible with the high radiation environment of deuterium-tritium plasmas in ITER, and could provide important information on fusion α-particles and beam ions in that device. In JET, ICE from confined fusion products scaled linearly with fusion reaction rate over six orders of magnitude and provided evidence that α-particle confinement was close to class…
Conditions for net fast ion drive are derived for beam-driven, sub-cyclotron compressional (CAE) and global (GAE) Alfvén eigenmodes, such as those routinely observed in spherical tokamaks such as NSTX(-U) and MAST. Both co- and counter-propagating CAEs and GAEs are investigated, driven by the ordinary and anomalous Doppler-shifted cyclotron resonance with fast ions. Whereas prior results were restricted to vanishingly narrow distributions in velocity space, broad parameter regimes are identified in this work which enable an analytic treatment for realistic fast ion distributions generated by n…
Context. The first studies with Parker Solar Probe (PSP) data have made significant progress toward the understanding of the fundamental properties of ion cyclotron waves in the inner heliosphere. The survey mode particle measurements of PSP, however, did not make it possible to measure the coupling between electromagnetic fields and particles on the time scale of the wave periods. Aims. We present a novel approach to study wave-particle energy exchange with PSP. Methods. We use the Flux Angle operation mode of the Solar Probe Cup in conjunction with the electric field measurements and present…
In collision-poor space plasmas protons with an excess of kinetic energy or temperature in direction perpendicular to background magnetic field can excite the electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) instability. This instability is expected to be highly sensitive to suprathermal protons, which enhance the high-energy tails of the observed velocity distributions and are well reproduced by the (bi-)Kappa distribution functions. In this paper we present the results of a refined quasilinear (QL) approach, able to describe the effects of suprathermal protons on the extended temporal evolution of EMIC …
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…
We derive a set of self-consistent marginally stable states for a system of ion-cyclotron waves propagating parallel to the large-scale magnetic field through a homogeneous proton-electron plasma. The proton distributions and the wave dispersions are related through the condition that no further ion-cyclotron resonant particle scattering or wave growth/damping may take place. The thermal anisotropy of the protons in these states therefore defines the threshold value for triggering the proton-cyclotron anisotropy instability. A number of recent papers have noted that the anisotropy of solar win…
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…
We use particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations to study the nonlinear evolution of ion velocity space instabilities in an idealized problem in which a background velocity shear continuously amplifies the magnetic field. We simulate the astrophysically relevant regime where the shear timescale is long compared to the ion cyclotron period, and the plasma beta is ~ 1-100. The background field amplification in our calculation is meant to mimic processes such as turbulent fluctuations or MHD-scale instabilities. The field amplification continuously drives a pressure anisotropy with the perpendicular pre…
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 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…
We calculate the transition rates between proton Landau levels due to non-radiative and radiative Coulomb collisions in an electron-proton plasma with strong magnetic field B. Both electron-proton collisions and proton-proton collisions are considered. The roles of the first-order cyclotron absorption and second-order free-free absorption and scattering in determining the line strength and shape as well as the continuum are analysed in detail. We solve the statistical balance equation for the populations of proton Landau levels. For temperatures \sim 10^6-10^7 K, the deviations of the proton p…
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, …
We study the dispersion relation for parallel propagating ion-cyclotron (IC) waves in a dusty plasma, considering situations where the velocity dispersion along perpendicular direction is greater than along the parallel direction, and considering the use of product-bi-kappa (PBK) velocity distributions for the plasma particles. The results obtained by numerical solution of the dispersion relation, in a case with isotropic Maxwellian distributions for electrons and PBK distribution for ions, show the occurrence of the electromagnetic ion-cyclotron instability (EMIC), and show that the decrease …
Ion Energy Tuning for Enhanced sp3 Carbon Fraction in Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Beam Deposited Diamond-Like Carbon Coatings: a Computational and Experimental Approach
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 …
