Beam-driven currents in the 1/ν regime in a helical system

Beam currents driven by a neutral particle injection in a helical system (stellarator, heliotron/torsatron) are studied in the 1/ν collisionality regime. The general expression for the beam-driven current is obtained for arbitrary magnetic field configurations by solving the drift kinetic equation for electrons. It is found that F = J(net)/J(b) (J(net) is the net current and J(b) is the fast ion beam current) increases as f(t) and Zeff where f(t) is the fraction of trapped electrons and Zeff is the effective ionic charge number. Especially, for Zeff ≅ 1 the effect of trapped electrons is large and F is roughly proportional to f(t). On the other hand, if Zeff > or approx 3 the effect of trapped electrons becomes small. (author)