Excitation of Alfven Cyclotron Instability by charged fusion products in tokamaks

Abstract

The spectrum of ion cyclotron emission (ICE) observed in tokamak experiments shows narrow peaks at multiples of the edge cyclotron frequency of background ions. A possible mechanism of ICE based on the fast Alfven Cyclotron Instability (ACI) resonantly excited by high energy charged products ({alpha}-particles or protons) is studied here. The two-dimensional ACI eigenmode structure and eigenfrequency are obtained in the large tokamak aspect ratio limit. The ACI is excited via wave-particle resonances in phase space by tapping the fast ion velocity space free energy. The instability growth rates are computed perturbatively from the perturbed fast particle distribution function, which is obtained by integrating the high frequency gyrokinetic equation along the particle orbit. Numerical examples of ACI growth rates are presented for TFTR plasmas. The fast ion distribution function is assumed to be singular in pitch angle near the plasma edge. The results are employed to understand the ICE in Deuterium-Deuterium (DD) and Deuterium-tritium (DT) tokamak experiments.