Full-wave modeling of lower hybrid waves on Alcator C-Mod

Abstract

This thesis focuses on several aspects of the Lower Hybrid (LH) wave physics, the common theme being the development of full-wave simulation codes based on Finite Element Methods (FEM) used in support of experiments carried out on the Alcator C-Mod tokamak. In particular, two non-linear problems have been adressed: high power antenna-plasma coupling and current drive (CD). In both cases, direct solution of the wave equation allowed testing the validity of approximations which were historically done and consider full-wave effects and realistic geometries. The first code, named POND, takes into account the interaction of high power LH waves and the plasma edge based on the non-linear ponderomotive force theory. Simulations found the effect of ponderomotive forces to be compatible with the density depletion which is measured in front of the antenna in presence of high power LH waves. The second code, named LHEAF, solves the problem of LH wave propagation in a hot non- Maxwellian plasma. The electron Landau damping (ELD) effect was expressed as a convolution integral along the magnetic field lines and the resultant integro-differential Helmholtz equation was solved iteratively. A 3D Fokker-Planck code and a synthetic Hard X-Ray (HXR) diagnostic modules are used to calculate the self-consistent electron distribution function and evaluate the resulting CD and bremsstrahlung radiation. LHEAF has been used to investigate the anomalous degradation of LHCD efficiency at high density. Results show that while a small fraction of the launched power can be absorbed in the SOL by collisions, it is a strong upshift in the nii spectrum that makes the overall LHCD efficiency low by allowing the waves to Landau damp near the edge. Wavelet analysis of the full-wave fields identified spectral broadening to occur after the waves reflect and propagate in the SOL. This work explains why on Alcator C-Mod the eikonal approximation is valid only in the low to moderate density regime, and why parasitic phenomena introduced in previous work can reproduce phenomenologically well the experimental results.