Toroidal Effects on Propagation, Damping, and Linear Mode Conversion of Lower Hybrid Waves

摘要

A common simplifying assumption made in the consideration of radio-frequency heating of tokamaks near the lower hybrid frequency is that the wave-length imposed by the coupling device parallel to the magnetic field is not modified by gradients along the field. In the present calculation, the parallel wave-length is allowed to vary, and important effects are found on wave penetration and damping if the toroidal aspect ratio (R/sub major//r/sub minor/) is less than approx. 5. The calculation shows that heating at the center of a small aspect ratio torus is inhibited by a decrease of k/sub parallel/ if waves are launched at the outside, and that it may be possible to change the plasma current via electron Landau damping with a coupler of symmetric power spectrum by placing the coupler at the top (or bottom) of the torus. (ERA citation 05:037374)