Nonlinear Particle Simulation of Ion Cyclotron Waves in Toroidal Geometry

Global particle simulation model has been developed in this work to provide a first-principles tool for studying the nonlinear interactions of radio frequency (RF) waves with plasmas in tokamak. In this model, ions are considered as fully kinetic particles using the Vlasov equation and electrons are treated as guiding centers using the drift kinetic equation with realistic electron-to-ion mass ratio. Boris push scheme for the ion motion has been developed in the toroidal geometry using magnetic coordinates and successfully verified for the ion cyclotron and ion Bernstein waves in global gyrokinetic toroidal code (GTC). The nonlinear simulation capability is applied to study the parametric decay instability of a pump wave into an ion Bernstein wave side band and a low frequency ion cyclotron quasi mode.CPCI-S(ISTP)akuley@uci.edu168