Charles Karney: Publication 9/85, Karney(1978a)

C. F. F. Karney and F. W. Perkins.
Alfvén wave heating with high-Q eigenmodes.
In Proc. Third Topical Conf. on Radio Frequency Plasma Heating, paper D3, January 1978.
Preprint rf3a.
Meeting held at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, Jan. 11–13.
BibTeX Entry

We consider the equation governing the mode structure of Alfvén waves. Since the Alfvén speed is a function of density, the compressional Alfvén wave changes from evanescent to propagating at some point in the plasma. However the presence of the shear Alfvén resonance changes this cutoff into a cutoff-resonance-cutoff triplet. By analytically and numerically studying the properties of the governing equation, we determine the absorption due to the resonance and Q for the eigenmode. We show that heating is possible using relatively high-Q eigenmodes.