Intense lower-hybrid wave penetration and current drive in reactor-grade plasmas

Apply lower-hybrid power in short, intense pulses can overcome Landau damping, allowing penetration into the core of reactor-grade plasmas. We present a theoretical description of the absorption and parametric stability of the pulses, and show results of ray-tracing calculations which include the absorption calculation. Consideration of the absorption and potential source availability lead to the consideration of 5--10 GW peak power, 30--100 μs pulses for ITER, and ∼ 2 MW, 20 μs pulses for a proof-of-principle experiment in the Microwave Tokamak Experiment (MTX)