Current drive in a tokamak through the trapping of ions in magnetic wells of a travelling fast magnetosonic wave
Kovan I. A., Chernov A. A.
If the ions formed during the injection of neutral atoms into a tokamak plasma are trapped in the magnetic wells of a fast magnetosonic wave travelling along the injection direction, there may be an accumulation of these ions, and an ion beam may form. The velocity of this beam would be the longitudinal phase velocity of the wave. This physical mechanism underlies a new inductionless method for driving a steady-state current in a tokamak. This new method has advantages over previous proposals.