Low-frequency heating of doublets

Abstract

Heating of a doublet plasma by driving an axisymmetric mode at low frequency may be an attractive means for auxiliary heating. The attractiveness of the method stems from (1) the low technology required for low-frequency power sources, (2) the fact that the field-shaping coils required for doublets may also be used as the antennae for transmitting the power, (3) the possibility of transmitting the power through a resistive vacuum wall, (4) the insensitivity to the plasma temperature and density and (5) the relative simplicity of the physical model. The utility of the concept depends on the existence of a special axisymmetric eigenmode in the resistive M.HD approximation which is used. This mode has nodes through the elliptic axes of the doublet equilibrium and an antinode at the hyperbolic axis. It is remarkable that the dissipation per cycle of this mode remains large at low plasma resistivity. This paper describes a linear theory for such heating.