https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202431301003
Nonlinear Landau damping of electron Bernstein waves in MAST-U
1 Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3NP, United Kingdom
2 Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, UKAEA, Abingdon, OX14 3DB, United Kingdom
3 Department of Physics, Technical University of Denmark, Fysikvej, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
* e-mail: mads.senstius@physics.ox.ac.uk
Published online: 15 November 2024
The Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak Upgrade (MAST-U) is preparing to investigate microwave based current drive using an advanced wave coupling scheme known as O-X-B at high power. The main goal is to assert if this is an efficient method for current drive in the future fusion demonstration power plant STEP. A model for the nonlinear wave-particle interaction nonlinear Landau damping (NLD) is presented. A relativistic, kinetic and electrostatic description is used. For MAST-U, NLD could lead to heating and current drive at the upper hybrid (UH) layer or at the electron cyclotron (EC) resonance of a substantially downshifted daughter wave produced by the wave-particle interactions. It is found that the typical treatment used for nonlinear waveinteractions fails at two critical points in the vicinity of the UH layer.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2024
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
