Reconstructing lower hybrid fields from ray tracing data

Ray tracing methods are commonly used to estimate the propagation of RF fields in plasmas. By going to higher order in the approximations used to derive the ray equations, it is possible to also reconstruct an approximate field from a family of rays. However, this field reconstruction is often neglected, primarily because of the difficulty of automatically dealing with focusing and reflections (caustics) in computational algorithms. In this work, we have been examining the feasibility of using tools developed for semi-classical quantum approximations to do RF field reconstructions. Specifically, it is possible to obtain a set of ODE's which approximately describe the dynamics of a wave packet centered on a ray. From this information, an approximate field can be reconstructed. We here report preliminary results for the reconstruction of lower hybrid fields using this technique.