Radio-frequency heating of a plasma

Abstract

If a uniform plasma is surrounded by a heating coil in the presence of a steady axial magnetic field, it is shown that a considerable increase in power absorption may be expected if the operating frequency is chosen to be close to a magneto-acoustic resonance of the plasma column. This effect is due to a very large increase in the oscillating field at the center of the plasma column. For an initially cool plasma, heating is due to a combination of ohmic and collisional heating, while at higher temperatures, collisional heating by magnetic pumping is the dominant heating mechanism.