We describe in detail the method for Particle-in cell/Monte-Carlo simulation of electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) discharges. In the simulation, electric and magnetic fields are obtained by solving Maxwell equations, and electrons and ions are accelerated by solving equations of motion. We consider two different cases: (i) propagation of electromagnetic wave in the presence of a constant external magnetic field; (ii) propagation of electromagnetic wave in the presence of a linearly decreasing magnetic field which corresponds to a realistic ECR discharge. The simulation results indicate that at the resonance layer, the electrons are heated by the electromagnetic wave, and the incoming wave amplitude is pronouncedly damped, with the wave hardly propagating through the ECR layer.
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 …
Plasma of a stationary ECR discharge sustained by gyrotron radiation at a frequency of 24 GHz and a power of up to 600 W in a mirror magnetic trap was studied. At pressures near the gas breakdown threshold, the extinction effect of an electron-cyclotron discharge is observed with increasing radiation power. When the cyclotron resonance cross section approaches the magnetic plug, the power threshold corresponding to the discharge extinction decreases. These experimental results confirm the presence of the effect of particles precipitation from the trap as a result of electron-cyclotron resonanc…
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…
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)…
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…
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 …
Alfvén cyclotron instabilities excited by velocity gradients of energetic beam ions were investigated in MAST experiments with super-Alfvénic NBI over a wide range of toroidal magnetic fields from ~0.34 T to ~0.585 T. In MAST discharges with high magnetic field, a discrete spectrum of modes in the sub-cyclotron frequency range is excited toroidally propagating counter to the beam and plasma current (toroidal mode numbers n < 0).
The possibilities and conditions of effective interaction, in particular acceleration, of charged particles by the field of plane electromagnetic wave in the presence of an external constant mag-netic field are considered. It is shown that the well-known conditions of cyclotron resonances require generalization. New conditions for the resonant interaction of charged particles are for-mulated, which contain not only the strength of the external magnetic field (as the well-known conditions of cyclotron resonances) but also the field strength of the wave. strengths. It is shown that new resonance…
A fluid description for collisionless magnetized plasmas that takes into account the effect of cyclotron resonance has been developed. Following the same approach as the Landau fluid closure, the heat flux components associated with transverse electromagnetic fluctuations are approximated by a linear combination of lower-order moments in wavenumber space. The closure successfully reproduces the linear cyclotron resonance for electromagnetic waves propagating parallel to the ambient magnetic field. In the presence of finite temperature anisotropy, the model gives approximately correct predictio…
A plausible scenario for the gamma ray and the hard x-ray burst in a strongly magnetized plasma, based on the collective plasma maser instability, is proposed. The physical parameters with which this scenario becomes relevant are estimated. The attractive feature of this scenario over the conventional cyclotron radiation theory is discussed.
We observe that high-Q electromagnetic cavity resonances increase the cyclotron cooling rate of pure electron plasmas held in a Penning-Malmberg trap when the electron cyclotron frequency, controlled by tuning the magnetic field, matches the frequency of standing wave modes in the cavity. For certain modes and trapping configurations, this can increase the cooling rate by factors of ten or more. In this paper, we investigate the variation of the cooling rate and equilibrium plasma temperatures over a wide range of parameters, including the plasma density, plasma position, electron number, and …
The self-excitation of plasma series resonance (PSR) oscillations is a prominent feature in the current of low pressure capacitive radio frequency (RF) discharges. This resonance leads to high frequency oscillations of the charge in the sheaths and enhances electron heating. Up to now, the phenomenon has only been observed in asymmetric discharges. There, the nonlinearity in the voltage balance, which is necessary for the self-excitation of resonance oscillations with frequencies above the applied frequencies, is caused predominantly by the quadratic contribution to the charge-voltage relation…
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.
Resonantly Driven Electron Bernstein Waves in Magnetized Low-Pressure Capacitive Discharges
School of Physical Sciences, UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, University of Mumbai（孟买大学物理科学学院，UM-DAE基础科学卓越中心）；Institute for Plasma Research（等离子体研究所）；Homi Bhabha National Institute（霍米·巴哈国家研究所）；Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory（普林斯顿等离子体物理实验室）
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…
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…
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…
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.
Negative hydrogen ion sources are used as injectors into accelerators and drive the neutral beam heating in ITER. Certain processes in low-temperature hydrogen plasmas are accompanied by the emission of vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) emission. Studying the VUV radiation therefore provides volumetric rates of plasma-chemical processes and plasma parameters. In the past we have used gasdynamic ECR discharge for volumetric negative ion production and investigated the dependencies between the extracted H$^-$ current density and various ion source parameters. It was shown that it is possible to reach up …
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…
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…
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…
The Warm Plasma Dispersion Relation, for waves in the electron cyclotron resonance range of frequencies, can be cast into the form of a bi-quadratic equation for $N_\perp$, where the coefficients are a function of $N_\perp^2$ and an iterative procedure is required to obtain a solution. However, this iterative procedure is not well understood and fails to converge towards a solution at the second harmonic resonance layer. In particular at higher densities where the wave can couple to an electron Bernstein wave. This paper focuses on a solution to the poor convergence of the iterative method, en…
An interesting characteristic of magnetospheric chorus is the presence of a frequency gap at $ω\simeq 0.5Ω_e$, where $Ω_e$ is the electron cyclotron angular frequency. Recent chorus observations sometimes show additional gaps near $0.3Ω_e$ and $0.6Ω_e$. Here we present a novel nonlinear mechanism for the formation of these gaps using Hamiltonian theory and test-particle simulations in a homogeneous, magnetized, collisionless plasma. We find that an oblique whistler wave with frequency at a fraction of the electron cyclotron frequency can resonate with electrons, leading to effective energy exc…
Experimental evidence of intrinsic noise induced coherence resonance in a glow discharge plasma is being reported. Initially the system is started at a discharge voltage (DV) where it exhibited fixed point dynamics, and then with the subsequent increase in the DV spikes were excited which were few in number and with further increase of DV the number of spikes as well as their regularity increased. The regularity in the interspike interval of the spikes is estimated using normalized variance (NV). Coherence resonance was determined using normalized variance curve and also corroborated by Hurst …
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,…
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…
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…
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…
We report the existence of an enhanced operating regime for a high-frequency, low-pressure capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) discharge in the presence of a weak magnetic field applied parallel to the electrodes. Our PIC-MCC simulations show that the plasma density and ion flux values exhibit a sharp peak when the electron cyclotron frequency equals half of the applied RF frequency. The physical mechanism responsible for this behaviour is traced to a synchronization between the oscillatory motion of the electrode sheath edge and the motion of a set of electrons reflected by this sheath. These e…
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…
We report on a novel investigation of the nonlinear regime of the electron cyclotron drift instability, using a grid-based Vlasov simulation. It is shown that the instability occurs as a series of cyclotron resonances with the electron beam mode due to the $E\times B$ drift. In the nonlinear regime, we observe condensation of fluctuations energy toward the lowest resonance mode and below, i.e., an inverse energy cascade. It is shown that the characteristics of the nonlinear saturation state remain far from the ion-sound regime.
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…
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 th…
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…
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 …
Influence of wave frequency variation on anomalous cyclotron resonance interaction of energetic electrons with finite amplitutude ducted whistler-mode wave
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…
Chorus-like whistler-mode waves that are known to play a fundamental role in driving radiation-belt dynamics are excited on the Large Plasma Device by the injection of a helical electron beam into a cold plasma. The mode structure of the excited whistler wave is identified using a phase-correlation technique showing that the waves are excited through a combination of Landau resonance, cyclotron resonance and anomalous cyclotron resonance. The dominant wave mode excited through cyclotron resonance is quasi-parallel propagating, whereas wave modes excited through Landau resonance and anomalous c…
