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Onset and Saturation of Ion Heating by Odd-Parity Rotating Magnetic Fields in a Field-Reversed Configuration

A. S. Landsman, S. A. Cohen, and A. H. Glasser

Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 015002 – Published 3 January 2006

Abstract

Heating of figure-8 orbit ions by odd-parity rotating magnetic fields ( ${RMF}_{o}$ ) applied to an elongated field-reversed configuration (FRC) is investigated. The largest energy gain occurs at resonances ( $s \equiv ω_{R} / ω$ ) of the ${RMF}_{o}$ frequency, $ω_{R}$ , with the figure-8 orbital frequency, $ω$ , and is proportional to $s^{2}$ for $s$ -even resonances and to $s$ for $s$ -odd resonances. The threshold for the transition from regular to stochastic orbits explains both the onset and saturation of heating. The FRC magnetic geometry lowers the threshold for heating below that in the tokamak by an order of magnitude.

Received 23 August 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.015002

Authors & Affiliations

A. S. Landsman^1,*, S. A. Cohen², and A. H. Glasser³

¹Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, Distrct of Columbia, USA
²Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
³Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA