Convective and diffusive energetic particle losses induced by shear Alfvén waves in the ASDEX upgrade tokamak

Phys Rev Lett. 2010 May 7;104(18):185002. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.185002. Epub 2010 May 6.

Abstract

We present here the first phase-space characterization of convective and diffusive energetic particle losses induced by shear Alfvén waves in a magnetically confined fusion plasma. While single toroidal Alfvén eigenmodes (TAE) and Alfvén cascades (AC) eject resonant fast ions in a convective process, an overlapping of AC and TAE spatial structures leads to a large fast-ion diffusion and loss. Diffusive fast-ion losses have been observed with a single TAE above a certain threshold in the fluctuation amplitude.