Particle simulations on propagation and resonance of lower hybrid wave launched by phased array antenna in linear devices

Abstract

In this paper, we performed the first-principles electromagnetic-kinetic simulations to study the phased antenna array and its interactions with deuterium plasmas within the lower hybrid range of frequency. We first give the wave accessibility and resonance results which agree well with the theoretical prediction. Besides, we further investigated the antenna power spectrum with different antenna phases in the presence of the plasma and compared it with that in the vacuum, which directly indicates wave coupling and plasma absorption. In addition, for the case with zero phasing difference, our simulation results show that, albeit the launch is away from the accessibility region, the tunnelling effect and mode conversion occurred, which enhanced the coupling and absorption. Moreover, the consistent interactions between the injected wave and the plasma concerning various antenna phase differences are shown. We present the inchoate response of the plasma in terms of the launching directions. Our results could be favourable for the engineering design of wave heating experiments with a tunable phased antenna array in linear devices like simple magnetic mirrors or tandem mirrors.