Neoclassical transport of energetic minority tail ions generated by ion-cyclotron resonance heating in tokamak geometry

Abstract

Neoclassical transport of energetic minority tail ions, which are generated by high powered electromagnetic waves of the Ion Cyclotron Range of Frequencies (ICRF) at the fundamental harmonic resonance, is studied analytically in tokamak geometry. The effect of Coulomb collisions on the tail ion transport is investigated in the present work. The total tail ion transport will be the sum of the present collision-driven transport and the wave-driven transport, which is due to the ICRF-wave scattering of the tail particles as reported in the literature. The transport coefficients have been calculated kinetically, and it is found that the large tail ion viscosity, driven by the localized ICRF-heating and Coulomb slowing-down collisions, induces purely convective particle transport of the tail species, while the energy transport is both convective and diffusive. The rate of radial particle transport is shown to be usually small, but the rate of radial energy transport is larger and may not be negligible compared to the Coulomb slowing-down rate. 18 refs., 2 figs.