Turbulent heating of the ions by lower hybrid fields

The author investigates turbulent heating of the ions in a plasma embedded in a magnetic field in the presence of a high frequency external electric field at the lower hybrid frequency which can excite decaying and growing parametric instabilities. On the basis of quasilinear theory the ion heating rate has been obtained and it is shown that the velocity distribution of the ions becomes strongly anisotropic. The results of this investigation are likely to be relevant to the proposed methods using lower hybrid waves for heating plasma ions up to thermonuclear temperatures. (Auth.)