Magnetic ripple and the modeling of lower-hybrid current drive in tokamaks

Abstract

Using ray tracing, a detailed investigation of the lower-hybrid (LH) wave propagation in presence of toroidal magnetic field ripple is presented. The local ray behavior is first depicted for a cylindrical equilibrium periodically modulated along the axial direction. Variations along ray trajectories in the component of the wave vector parallel to the equilibrium magnetic field are observed, with a maximum relative amplitude that is locally of the order of the ripple level. For the full rippled toroidal equilibrium, a similar local behavior is found when the ray trajectory crosses a high ripple region. Despite the modest amplitude of the local ray perturbation, its global influence on ray trajectories may be strong, as a consequence of the combined effects of toroidal and poloidal inhomogeneities. By coupling ray tracing with a one-dimensional relativistic Fokker–Planck code, simulations of LH experiments have been performed for the TORE SUPRA tokamak [Equipe TORE SUPRA, in Proceedings of the 15th Conference on Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research, Seville (International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 1995), Vol. 1, p. 105, Paper IAEA-CN-60/A1-5]. It is shown that magnetic ripple may induce significant modifications in the LH power deposition profiles, mainly in the ‘‘few passes’’ regime when the wave makes some, but not many, passes inside the plasma before being absorbed. The effect of magnetic ripple leads then to a broadening of the power deposition profile and a shift towards the center of the plasma, and a better coupling with high energy electrons. This behavior may be explained by an increase in the overall ray stochasticity. Taking into account magnetic ripple in LH simulations, a better agreement is found between numerical predictions and experimental observations.