Validity condition for the local sheath impedance boundary condition and a nonlocal generalization.

ICRF sheaths can cause unwanted interactions of high-power RF waves with material surfaces in magnetic fusion devices. In previous work, a local RF sheath impedance boundary condition (BC) was derived for use in ICRF codes together with a microscale (i.e., Debye or sheath width scale) model for obtaining the sheath impedance used in that BC. This local RF sheath BC matches the normal component of current and electrostatic potential across the sheath-plasma interface. Collapsing the matching conditions at the sheath-plasma interface to a BC depends on the assumption of scale separation, which can be violated when conditions along the local radius of curvature of the surface vary sufficiently rapidly. The validity condition is explored in this contribution, with special attention to the case where the magnetic field approaches being tangent to the surface. When the local sheath BC no longer applies, a nonlocal sheath BC is developed under the assumption of a more relaxed scale separation assumption. It is shown that the nonlocal sheath BC reduces to the previous local sheath BC under appropriate conditions. A surface-integrated sheath admittance parameter [H. Kohno and J. R. Myra, this conference] describes the 2D physics in the new BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]