Effects of finite drift orbit width and RF-induced spatial transport on plasma heated by ICRH

The effects of RF-induced transport and orbit topology of resonant ions are analysed for high power ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH). These effects are found to play important roles in the details of the high-energy part of the distribution function, and affect the driven current and momentum transfer to the background plasma. The finite drift orbit width broadens the power deposition and leads to losses of high-energy ions intercepted by the wall. RF-induced transport of resonant ions across magnetic flux surfaces appears due to the toroidal acceleration of resonant ions interacting with waves having a finite toroidal mode number. Heating with waves propagating parallel to the current leads to a drift of the turning points of trapped resonant ions towards the midplane. As the turning points meet, the orbits will de-trap, preferentially into co-current passing orbits, which may ultimately be displaced to the low field side of the magnetic axis. Ions with such orbits are a typical feature in plasmas heated with directed toroidal mode spectra of waves propagating parallel to the plasma current. These ions will be subjected to a strong RF diffusion partly caused by the focusing of the wave field and partly by the Doppler shifted cyclotron resonance, as it approaches tangency with the drift orbit. The resonance condition puts a limitation on the achievable energy for these ions, which is more severe than for corresponding trapped ions. This results in a rather flat tail up to a critical energy, above which the tail rapidly decays. Heating with waves propagating anti-parallel with the plasma current curtails the energy of the trapped ions due to a vertical outward drift of the turning points of the trapped ions. Heating with symmetric spectra, in particular with waves with low magnitude of the toroidal mode numbers, gives rise to high-energy trapped ions with wide orbits, of which the maximum energy is either restricted by the fact that the RF diffusion vanishes due to cancellation of the perpendicular acceleration over a gyro orbit or by the drift orbits being intercepted by the wall. In the steady state the main source for momentum transfer to the bulk plasma comes from the finite momentum of the wave for heating with asymmetric spectra. For heating with symmetric spectra the enhanced losses of high-energy trapped ions can produce a net counter-current torque on the plasma.