Using a variational technique, a set of coupled model equations for the mode-conversion process near the ion-cyclotron frequency is derived. The system is truncated to first order in Larmor radius but includes the effects of p^ilicit gradients and a poloidal field. From the equations a conservation rule is extracted which ensures conservation of total energy and provides an explicit expression for the wave damping in differential form. The equations are integrated numerically for the standard cases of fast waves iv.cident from either the low-or high-field sides of the mode-conversion layer. The scaling of the damping processes is discussed and implications for current RF-heating experiments on the Princeton Large Torus are drawn.
A computational scheme is developed which permits tractable calculation of three-dimensional full-wave solutions to the Vlasov-Maxwell equations under typical ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF) experimental conditions. The method is unique in that power deposition to the plasma is determined via the anti-Hermitian part of a truncated warm plasma dielectric operator, rather than as the result of an assumed phenomenological collision frequency. The resulting computer code allows arbitrary variation of density, temperature, magnetic field and minority concentration in the poloidal plane by performing a convolution of poloidal modes to produce a coupled system of differential equations in the radial variable. By assuming no inhomogeneity along the toroidal axis, an inverse transform over kg is performed, yielding the global three-dimensional fast wave field solutions. The application of the code to TFTR-like plasmas shows a mild resonance structure in antenna loading related to the changing number of wavelengths between the antenna and the resonance layer.
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