An Equation of the Quasilinear Theory with Wide Resonance Region

Abstract

An equation of the quasilinear theory is derived. It is based on the same assumptions as the well-known equation in [1]. However, it has another form of the quasilinear operator, which does not contain the longitudinal wavenumber. Due to this, characteristics of the derived equation determine the routes of a quasilinear evolution of the particle distribution function, even when the resonance region determined by the spectrum of longitudinal wavenumbers is wide. It is demonstrated that during the ion acceleration by the ion cyclotron resonant heating, (i) the change of the longitudinal ion energy can be considerable and (ii) the increase of the particle energy may well exceed the increase described by characteristics of the Kennel-Engelmann equation (which are shown, in particular, in [10]), because these characteristics represent the ways of the quasilinear diffusion only when the resonance region is narrow.K e y w o r d s: quasilinear theory, resonance region, ion cyclotron resonant heating, resonance, wave frequency, ion acceleration.