Particle Simulation of Lower Hybrid Waves and Electron-ion Hybrid Instability

Lower hybrid wave (LHW) has been of great interest to laboratory plasma physics for decades due to its important applications in particles heating and current drive in plasmas devices. There are two fundamental characteristics of LHWs, Landau damping and parametric instability (PI), both of which play key roles in particles heating and current drive problems. Linear physics of LHWs has been studied in great details in analytical theories, while nonlinear physics is usually too complicated to be resolved analytically. Computer kinetic simulation technique has developed to be one of the best tools for the investigation of kinetic physics, especially in the nonlinear stage. Although a great amount of theoretical work has been done in the investigation of LHWs, little particle simulation work can be found in published literatures. In this thesis, an electrostatic gyro-kinetic electron and fully kinetic ion (GeFi) particle simulation scheme is utilized to study the linear and nonlinear physics of LHWs. GeFi model is particularly suitable for plasma dynamics with wave frequencies lower than the electron gyrofrequency, and for problems in which the wave modes ranging fro