Survey of electric field shear driven by radio frequency waves in tokamak plasmas

The stabilization of plasma turbulence by sheared poloidal rotation is thought to explain enhanced confinement in tokamak plasmas. One method proposed for controlling sheared flow is the use of externally driven radio-frequency (RF) waves. A number of calculations and some experiments have suggested that a modest amount of power in the ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF) can drive the needed flows. Previous calculations have relied on incompressible fluid models which balance RF forces in the poloidal direction against neoclassical viscosity. But the incompressible assumption is not always valid, particularly for ion Bernstein waves (IBW). Also, since the IBW is a kinetic wave by nature, a fully consistent model should include kinetic effects. In this paper, RF driven flows are calculated from both compressible fluid and kinetic points of view