Show simple item record

Files in this item

Thumbnail

Item metadata

dc.contributor.advisorCairns, R. A.
dc.contributor.authorMcGregor, Duncan Ekundayo
dc.coverage.spatial122en
dc.date.accessioned2007-03-05T11:45:09Z
dc.date.available2007-03-05T11:45:09Z
dc.date.issued2007
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10023/212
dc.description.abstractElectron Bernstein waves are a mode of oscillation in a plasma, thought a candidate for providing radiofrequency heating and non-inductive current drive in spherical tokamaks. Previous studies of these modes have relied on neglecting or simplifying the contribution made by relativistic effects. This work presents fully relativistic numerical results that show the mode's dispersion relation for a wide range of parameters. Relativistic effects are shown to shift the location of the resonance as in previous studies, but the effects beyond this are shown to matter only in high temperature (10-20keV) plasmas. At these higher temperatures however, the fully relativistic model differs markedly. The assumption that the mode is electrostatic is looked at, and found to be inadequate for describing fully the electron Bernstein modes dispersion relation. Simple estimates that neglect toroidal effects show current drive efficiency is expected to be an order of magnitude higher than that for conventional electron cyclotron current drive using the O or X modes. It is shown for a number of model tokamaks that heating the center of the plasma and driving current using EBWs is impossible launching from the outside due to strong damping of the wave at higher cyclotron harmonics. Results from a code based on a more complicated semi-analytic model of current drive, that includes toroidal effects and calculates the average current drive over the magnetic surface, confirm the higher expected current drive efficiency, and the code is shown to give good agreement with a Fokker-Planck code. The higher values of perpendicular refractive index associated with the EBWs are shown to mitigate the deleterious effects of trapping on current drive efficiency to a small extent. The details of the magnetic field are found to be unimportant to the calculation beyond determing where the wave is absorbed. The codes written to produce these results are outlined before each set of results. The last of these is considerably faster than conventional Fokker-Planck codes and a useful tool in studying electron cyclotron current drive in the future.en
dc.format.extent3824011 bytes
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherUniversity of St Andrews
dc.subjectPlasma physicsen
dc.subjectRadiofrequency heatingen
dc.subject.lccQC718.5H5M4
dc.subject.lcshPlasma heatingen
dc.subject.lcshPlasma wavesen
dc.subject.lcshTokamaksen
dc.titleElectron cyclotron heating and current drive using the electron Bernstein modesen
dc.typeThesisen
dc.contributor.sponsorEngineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)en
dc.contributor.sponsorEuropean Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM)
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoralen
dc.type.qualificationnamePhD Doctor of Philosophyen
dc.publisher.institutionThe University of St Andrewsen
dc.publisher.departmentUKAEA Culhamen


This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record