Towards solving the ICRH wave and Fokker-Planck equations self-consistently

TL;DR

This paper proposes a framework for self-consistently solving the wave and Fokker-Planck equations in ion cyclotron resonance heating, enabling better modeling of wave-particle interactions in plasmas with complex distributions.

Contribution

It introduces a method to construct common computational building blocks for wave and Fokker-Planck equations, facilitating self-consistent plasma modeling.

Findings

Demonstrates the approach with two plasma cases: guiding center motion and axisymmetric drifts.

Includes analytical results and methods for dielectric response computation.

Shows the potential for improved wave-particle interaction simulations.

Abstract

The present paper sketches a framework for solving the wave and Fokker-Planck equations in the ion cyclotron resonance frequency domain fully selfconsistently. It illustrates this can be done by first constructing "building blocks" that are commonly needed by the wave and Fokker-Planck equations, allowing e.g. to account for wave coupling in plasmas containing non-Maxwellian distributions. Up to details, the paper exploits known expressions and methods to solve the two intimately connected aspects of the description of the wave-particle interaction underlying ion cyclotron resonance heating. Two cases are presented: the case where the guiding centre motion is limited to just following magnetic field lines, and the extended case accounting for drifts away from magnetic surfaces but assuming axisymmetry. A limited set of analytical results is included. As combining wave and Fokker-Planck solving is the focus, the computation of the dielectric response for arbitrary distribution functions is illustrated as well.