Simulations of NBI-ICRF synergy with the full-wave TORIC package

Abstract

During the combined plasma heating with neutral beam injection (NBI) and waves in the ion cyclotron (IC) range of frequencies, the NBI fast ions are preferentially accelerated by IC waves close to the IC harmonics, as a consequence of finite Larmor radius (FLR) effects. Since the NBI fast ions are expected to have a strong influence on the wave absorption and propagation, we have implemented a NBI source in the quasilinear Fokker‐Planck SSFPQL code, interfaced with the toroidal full‐wave TORIC solver. In this implementation the NBI ionization sources are obtained from the output of a Monte Carlo code, such as FAFNER. The numerical scheme adopted in the TORIC‐SSFPQL package allows to describe very anisotropic sources, such as NBI, and to iterate the solution of Maxwell’s equation taking into account selfconsistently the fast ion tails. As a first application, we present modeling of an ASDEX‐Upgrade discharge with combined NBI and ICRF heating.