Fast Ion Non-adiabaticity in Spherical Tokamaks

Abstract

Transport processes of fast ions in axisymmetric low-aspect-ratio spherical torus (ST) plasmas are investigated, which are induced by the non-conservation of the magnetic moment {mu}. The reason for non-conservation of {mu} of fast ions in ST's is the relatively large adiabaticity parameter epsilon typically exceeding the value 0.1 (epsilon = ratio of ion gyroradius to the gradient scale length of the magnetic field). Both analytical and numerical evaluations of the magnitude of nonadiabatic variations of {mu} are performed. Nonadiabaticity effects are shown to be most significant for fast ions for which the bounce oscillations are in resonance with the gyromotion, i.e., for ions with omega(subscript)B - lomega(subscript)b = 0, where omega(subscript)B and omega(subscript)b represent the bounce-averaged gyrofrequency and the bounce frequency, respectively, and l is an integer. The critical threshold of the adiabaticity parameter, epsilon(subscript)cr, to be exceeded for the transition to stochastic behavior of fast ions in axisymmetric ST's is inspected. Nonadiabatic variations of {mu} are shown to lead to collisionless transformation of trapped orbits into circulating ones and vice versa. For the case of strong nonadiabaticity, epsilon > epsilon(subscript)cr, we assess the transport coefficients describing intense collisionless pitch-angle diffusion, whereas, in the case of weak nonadiabaticity, epsilon > epsilon(subscript)cr, the more substantial coefficients of enhanced collisional radial diffusion and convection of fast ions gyrating resonantly with the bounce oscillations are estimated.