Resonance localization in tokamaks excited with ICRF waves

Advanced wave models used to evaluate ICRH in tokamaks typically use warm plasma theory and allow inhomogeneity in one dimension. The majority of these calculations neglect the fact that gyrocenters experience the inhomogeneity via their motion parallel to the magnetic field. The non-local effects of rotational transform and toroidicity can play a significant role in both the propagation and the absorption physics. In strongly driven systems, wave damping can distort the particle distribution function supporting the wave and this produces changes in the absorption. The most common approach is to use Maxwellian absorption rates. We have developed a bounce-averaged Fokker-Planck quasilinear computational model which evolves the population of particles on more realistic orbits. Each wave-particle resonance has its own specific interaction amplitude within any given volume element; these data need only be generated once, and appropriately stored for efficient retrieval. The wave-particle resonant interaction then serves as a mechanism by which the diffusion of particle populations can proceed among neighboring orbits. The local specific spectral energy absorption rate is directly calculable once the orbit geometry and populations are determined. The code is constructed in such fashion as to accommodate wave propagation models which provide the wave spectral energy density on a poloidal cross-section. Information provided by the calculation includes the local absorption properties of the medium which can then be exploited to evolve the wave field