A mechanism for beam-driven excitation of ion cyclotron harmonic waves in the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor

A mechanism is proposed for the excitation of waves at harmonics of the injected ion cyclotron frequencies in neutral beam-heated discharges in the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) [Proceedings of the 17th European Conference on Controlled Fusion and Plasma Heating (European Physical Society, Petit-Lancy, Switzerland, 1990), p. 1540]. Such waves are observed to originate from the outer midplane edge of the plasma. It is shown that ion cyclotron harmonic waves can be destabilized by a low concentration of sub-Alfvénic deuterium or tritium beam ions, provided these ions have a narrow distribution of speeds parallel to the magnetic field. Such a distribution is likely to occur in the edge plasma, close to the point of beam injection. The predicted instability gives rise to wave emission at propagation angles lying almost perpendicular to the field. In contrast to the magnetoacoustic cyclotron instability proposed as an excitation mechanism for fusion-product-driven ion cyclotron emission in the Joint European Torus (JET) [Phys. Plasmas 1, 1918 (1994)], the instability proposed here does not involve resonant fast Alfvén and ion Bernstein waves, and can be driven by sub-Alfvénic energetic ions. It is concluded that the observed emission from TFTR can be driven by beam ions.