Simulation of ion cyclotron resonance heating by using particle-in-cell method in MPS-LD linear plasma device

Abstract

The auxiliary heating of electrons and ions in linear plasma devices (LPDs) is necessary to achieve the boundary plasma relevant environment of tokamaks, to investigate the boundary physics and plasma—material interactions. In this work, the simulation of ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) in the LPD multiple plasma simulation linear device (MPS-LD) is carried out by using a 3D particle-in-cell method, and the wave—ion interaction mechanism based on a ‘beach-heating’ technique in the ion heating region is investigated. A left-handed, circularly polarized wave along the magnetic field lines is used to represent the electromagnetic wave in the model, after the analysis of the cold plasma dispersion relation. The mechanism of ion heating by collisionless damping absorption is demonstrated and explained by using the plasma current as the plasma response. The dependencies of the heating efficiency on the plasma density, magnetic field strength and magnetic field configuration are studied. The correlation between plasma density and magnetic field strength, which satisfies the heating efficiency, is found and it is in perfect agreement with the theoretical derivation. Finally, by using the designed parameters of MPS-LD provided by SOLPS-ITER, the prediction of ICRH is performed. The simulation result shows that the ion temperature can be heated higher than 40 eV and it satisfies the requirement for scrape-off layer/divertor simulation experimentally in MPS-LD.