Complicated wave behavior observed in the cylindrical pair-ion (fullerene) experiments by Oohara and co-workers are now identified to be low harmonic ion cyclotron waves combined with ion plasma oscillations inherent to kinetic theory. The electrostatic dispersion equation derived is based on an approximation for the current from the exact solutions of the characteristic cylindrical geometry form of the Vlasov plasma equation in a uniform magnetized plasma cylinder surrounded by a larger metal boundary outside a vacuum gap, which thus differs from that in unbounded plasmas. Positive and negative ions, differing only in the sign of their charge, respond to a potential in the same time scale and cooperate to reflect the enhanced kinetic orbital behaviors to the macroscopic propagation characteristics. In addition, the experimental value of the Larmor radius (comparable to the discharge radius but small enough to make the analytic approximation useful) makes higher harmonic ion cyclotron effects both observable and calculable with the appropriate approximation for the kinetic theory.

The effects of nonthermal electron distributions on electrostatic ion-temperature-gradient (ITG) driven drift-wave instabilities in the presence of equilibrium density, temperature, and magnetic field gradients are investigated here. By using Braginskii’s transport equations for ions and Cairns as well as Kappa distribution for electrons, the coupled mode equations are derived. The modified ITG driven modes are derived, and it is found both analytically as well as numerically that the nonthermal distribution of electrons significantly modify the real frequencies as well as the growth rate of the ITG driven drift wave instability. The growth rate of ion-temperature-gradient driven instability is found to be maximum for Cairns, intermediate for Kappa, and minimum for the Maxwellian distributed electron case. The results of present investigation might be helpful to understand several wave phenomena in space and laboratory plasmas in the presence of nonthermal electrons.

Nonlinear equations which govern the dynamics of low-frequency toroidal ion-temperature-gradient driven modes (i.e., ω≪ωci, where ωci is the ion gyro-frequency) are derived in the presence of equilibrium density, temperature, and magnetic field gradients. In the nonlinear case, solutions in the form of dipolar vortices and vortex street are presented for a plasma comprising of Maxwellian ions and nonthermal electrons that are embedded in an external magnetic field. By using Braginskii's transport equations for the Maxwellian ions and Kappa distributed electrons, the coupled mode equations for the system under consideration are derived. The results have been applied in Tokamak plasmas, and it has been observed that the scale lengths over which the nonlinear vortex structures form get modified in the presence of Kappa distributed electrons. The present study is also applicable to tokamaks and stellarators where non-Maxwellian population has been observed in resonant frequency heating, electron cyclotron heating experiments, and in runaway electrons.