High-power ion–cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) can produce centrally peaked fast ion distributions with wide non-standard drift orbits exciting Alfvén eigenmodes (AEs). The dynamics of the AE excitation depends not only on the anisotropy and the peaking of the fast ion distribution but also on the decorrelation of the AE interactions and the renewal of the fast ions resonant with the AE by ion–cyclotron interactions. A method of self-consistently including the evolution of the distribution function of fast ions during excitation of AEs and ICRH has been developed and implemented in the SELFO code. Numerical simulations of the AE dynamics and ICRH give a variation of the AE amplitude consistent with the experimentally observed splitting of the mode frequency. The experimentally observed fast damping of the mode as the ICRH is switched off is also evident in the simulations.

A detailed study of ion cyclotron interactions in a toroidal plasma has been carried out in order to elucidate the role of toroidal effects on ion cyclotron emission. It is well known that non-relaxed distribution functions can give rise to excitation of magnetosonic waves by ion cyclotron interactions when the distribution function increases with respect to the perpendicular velocity. We have extended and clarified the conditions under which even collisionally relaxed distribution function can destabilize magnetosonic eigenmodes. In a toroidal plasma, cyclotron interactions at the plasma boundary with ions having barely co-current passing orbits and marginally trapped orbits can cause destabilisation by the strong inversion of the distribution function along the characteristics of cyclotron interaction by neo-classical effects. The unstable interactions can further be enhanced by tangential interactions, which can also prevent the interactions from reaching the stable part of the characteristics, where they interact with trapped orbits. Conditions on the localization of the magnetosonic eigenmodes for unstable excitation are analysed by studying the anti-Hermitian part of the susceptibility tensor of thermonuclear alpha-particles. The pattern of positive and negative regions of the anti-Hermitian part of the susceptibility tensor of thermonuclear alpha-particles is, in general, consistent with the excitation of edge localized magnetosonic eigenmodes, even though the eigenmodes are usually not localized in the major radius and for distribution functions that have relaxed to steady state.

The heating during the FWCD is strongly degraded compared to dipole heating. The FWCD has only a small effect on the central current density. The main reasons are the parasitic absorption of RF power, the strongly inductive nature of the plasma and the interplay between the fast wave driven current and bootstrap current.

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Alfvén eigenmodes (AEs) excited by thermonuclear α-particles can degrade the heating efficiency by spatial redistribution of the resonant α-particles. Changes of the orbit invariants in phase space by collisions and interactions with other waves, such as magnetosonic waves during ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH), lead to changes in the phase between the α-particles and AEs, causing a decorrelation of the interactions and stronger redistribution of the α-particles. Cyclotron interactions increase the decorrelation of the AE interactions with the high-energy ions and hence a stronger radial redistribution of the high-energy α-particles by the AEs. Renewal of the distribution function by thermonuclear reactions and losses of α-particles to the wall lead to a continuous drive of the AEs and a radial redistribution of the α-particles. The condition for excitation of AEs is shown to depend on the heating scenario where heating at the low field side creates a significant population of high-energy non-standard orbits which drive the modes. The redistribution results in a reduction in the averaged α-particle energy and a degradation of the heating efficiency. The effect on the distribution function in the presence of several unstable modes is not additive and the particle redistribution is found to saturate with an increasing number of modes.