A generalized plasma dispersion function for electron damping in tokamak plasmas

L. A. Berry, E. F. Jaeger, C. K. Phillips, C. H. Lau, N. Bertelli, D. L. Green

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9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Radio frequency wave propagation in finite temperature, magnetized plasmas exhibits a wide range of physics phenomena. The plasma response is nonlocal in space and time, and numerous modes are possible with the potential for mode conversions and transformations. In addition, diffraction effects are important due to finite wavelength and finite-size wave launchers. Multidimensional simulations are required to describe these phenomena, but even with this complexity, the fundamental plasma response is assumed to be the uniform plasma response with the assumption that the local plasma current for a Fourier mode can be described by the "Stix" conductivity. However, for plasmas with non-uniform magnetic fields, the wave vector itself is nonlocal. When resolved into components perpendicular (k) and parallel (k||) to the magnetic field, locality of the parallel component can easily be violated when the wavelength is large. The impact of this inconsistency is that estimates of the wave damping can be incorrect (typically low) due to unresolved resonances. For the case of ion cyclotron damping, this issue has already been addressed by including the effect of parallel magnetic field gradients. In this case, a modified plasma response (Z function) allows resonance broadening even when k|| = 0, and this improves the convergence and accuracy of wave simulations. In this paper, we extend this formalism to include electron damping and find improved convergence and accuracy for parameters where electron damping is dominant, such as high harmonic fast wave heating in the NSTX-U tokamak, and helicon wave launch for off-axis current drive in the DIII-D tokamak.

Original languageEnglish
Article number102504
JournalPhysics of Plasmas
Volume23
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 1 2016

Funding

This work was sponsored by Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC-5-00OR22725. Numerical calculations used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

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