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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 du, QC 20100507

Ion cyclotron resonance heating in a toroidal plasma not only increases the perpendicular energy of the resonating ions but also results in their spatial transport. Depending on the direction of propagation of the waves, the ions will either drift inwards or outwards giving rise to an RF induced rotation with the toroidal torque component in the co-current or counter-current directions, respectively. It is found that the spatial transport induced by the RF field, the topology of the ion drift orbits and a wave field consistent with ion absorption are important for determining the distribution function of the heated species. Studies of ICRF heating with the self-consistent code SELFO reveal new features such as the formation of non-standard passing orbits residing on the low field side of the magnetic axis. For a symmetric spectrum the drift terms will in general not cancel. Some classes of orbit will be subjected only to an inward drift and others only to an outward drift. The lack of cancellation of the drift terms is further enhanced by the self-consistent coupling, increasing the absorption for waves propagating parallel to the plasma current, but not for waves propagating in the antiparallel direction. This results in a strong inward pinch also for symmetric wave spectra as well as for typical experimental spectra, with the dominant peak in the counter-plasma-direction., QC 20100525

The distribution function and power deposition during ICRH in a tokamak plasma are analysed. The importance of self-consistent calculations and the formation of son-standard drift orbits are addressed. It is found that for high power ICRH, the presence of non-standard orbits are crucial for describing the distribution function. For a standard minority heating scenario with the ion cyclotron resonance located at the high field side, the absorption of the wave power is shifted to the low field side (LFS) because of the orbit topology and the evolving wave field profile. The high energy tail of the distribution function of the resonating ions is found to be dominated by ions in passing orbits, of which some reside completely on the LFS of the tokamak., QC 20100525

QC 20100621