Quasioptical propagation and absorption of electron cyclotron waves: simulations and experiment. (6th September 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Yanagihara, K.; Kubo, S.; Dodin, I.Y.; the LHD Experiment Group,
• Is Part Of: Nuclear fusion. Volume 61:Number 10(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-09-06
• Subjects: electron cyclotron resonance heating -- quasioptical ray tracing -- Large Helical Device; Nuclear fusion -- Periodicals; 621.48405
• DOI: 10.1088/1741-4326/ac1d86
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0029-5515

Abstract

Abstract: Electron-cyclotron resonance heating is an essential tool for manipulating fusion plasmas and has been diligently studied for decades through numerical simulations and experiments. Here, we report the first comparison of simulations using the quasioptical code PARADE (PAraxial RAy DEscription) with experiments using a target-plate system on the Large Helical Device. We find that the numerical and experimental results agree qualitatively, which makes PARADE a promising code for modeling of electron-cyclotron wave beams in future experiments. The signature advantage of PARADE is its ability to capture both mode conversion and inhomogeneity of the dissipation rate across the beam cross section. Accounting for these effects, which can noticeably affect the power deposition, significantly improves the agreement between numerical results and experimental data.