Rotation of tokamak plasmas by Alfvén waves (Q1303655)

Rotational motions of tokamak plasmas play an important role in the efficiency of plasma confinement. A way to induce such motions is to apply external Alfvén waves to a collisional plasma which can absorb these waves. The authors study how the excited poloidal end toroidal velocity components of plasma depend on the ponderomotive radio-frequency force of Alfvén waves. They compute the resulting velocities for various wave absorption conditions depending on the Alfvén wave frequency, the wave intensity, and on the tokamak plasma parameters such as temperature, particle density, and geometrical characteristics of a tokamak given by its radii. The obtained theoretical results show a good agreement with experimental measurements for the Phaedrus-T tokamak.