Electron current drive by fusion-product-excited lower hybrid drift instability

Abstract

We present first principles simulations of the direct collisionless coupling of the free energy of fusion-born ions into electron current in a magnetically confined fusion plasma. These simulations demonstrate, for the first time, a key building block of some "alpha channelling" scenarios for tokamak experiments. A fully self-consistent electromagnetic 1D3V particle-in-cell code is used to evolve a parallel drifting ring-beam distribution of 3MeV protons in a 10keV thermal deuterium-electron plasma with realistic mass ratio. Collective instability gives rise to electromagnetic field activity in the lower hybrid range of frequencies. These spontaneously excited obliquely propagating waves undergo Landau damping on resonant electrons, drawing out an asymmetric tail in the distribution of electron parallel velocities, which carries a current.

4 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Alpha Channeling in a Rotating Plasma

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Quantifying fusion born ion populations in magnetically confined plasmas using ion cyclotron emission
• Ion cyclotron emission from fusion-born ions in large tokamak plasmas: a brief review from JET and TFTR to ITER
• Nonresonant Diffusion in Alpha Channeling
• Observations and modelling of ion cyclotron emission observed in JET plasmas using a sub-harmonic arc detection system during ion cyclotron resonance heating
• Stimulated emission of fast Alfvén waves within magnetically confined fusion plasmas
• Self-consistent kinetic simulations of lower hybrid drift instability resulting in electron current driven by fusion products in tokamak plasmas
• Intrinsic current drive by electromagnetic electron temperature gradient turbulence in tokamak plasmas
• Gyrobunching and wave-particle resonance in the lower hybrid drift instability