Experiments on drift wave launching: I. Dispersion curves and damping rates

We describe experiments on the launching of drift waves in the UMIST Quadrupole GOLUX, presenting the general principles of successful launching and showing how these are applied to launch both the unstable drift waves which occur spontaneously in the device, and other stable modes representing different branches of the drift wave dispersion relation. In each case the measured dispersion curves are presented and compared with theory. All the waves appear to be spatially damped, including those known to be unstable; we propose that this is due to systematic error in the detection system. The results suggest that only if the measured decay constant exceeds about can we be certain that the waves are actually damped. This is the case at low frequencies, where the dissipation is due to ion Landau damping, and again at high wavenumbers where no suitable dissipative process has been discovered. We conjecture that the effect is due to radiative damping, associated with the breakdown of the one-dimensional propagation assumed in the theory.