Simulation of ion cyclotron heating of tokamak plasmas using coupled Maxwell and quasilinear-Fokker–Planck solvers

Abstract

The code TORIC solving Maxwell equations in toroidal axisymmetric plasmas in the ion cyclotron (IC) frequency range has proved to be a useful tool for the simulation of IC heating and current drive in tokamak plasmas. TORIC has now been integrated in a package which includes, among other features, an interface to the experimental data (Grad–Shafranov MHD configuration, density and temperature profiles), interfaces to quasilinear Fokker–Planck solvers for the electrons and ions and a subroutine which allows us to estimate the effects of suprathermal anisotropic minority ions populations on wave propagation and absorption. This package allows somewhat simplified but essentially self-consistent simulations of heating and current drive in this frequency domain. In this paper we summarize the physics included in TORIC, with particular emphasis on the most recent extensions, and present an example of the application of the package to the analysis of two IC heating experiments in ASDEX Upgrade and in JET.