Instability of energetic ion beam injection in tokamaks
Abstract
There is considerable interest in the use of energetic ion beams to heat magnetically confined plasmas to ignition temperature. An uncertainty in this heating technique is the possible role of instabilities driven by the fast ion beams. For this reason, we have investigated homogeneous plasma modes, including the cross field ion-ion wave and the beam ion-acoustic wave, as well as the ordinary electromagnetic mode, which taps the free energy associated with the beam anisotropy. The growth rates of these modes are calculated and the stability thresholds are compared to parameters for both present injection experiments and the proposed TFTR device.
- Publication:
-
Journal of Plasma Physics
- Pub Date:
- October 1976
- DOI:
- Bibcode:
- 1976JPlPh..16..171G
- Keywords:
-
- Energy Distribution;
- Ion Injection;
- Magnetohydrodynamic Stability;
- Plasma Control;
- Plasma Heating;
- Tokamak Devices;
- Anisotropic Fluids;
- Electromagnetic Fields;
- Ignition Temperature;
- Ion Acoustic Waves;
- Ion Beams;
- Ion Distribution;
- Magnetic Control;
- Plasma Physics