Acceleration of electrons in the vicinity of a lower hybrid waveguide array

The interaction of tokamak plasma edge electrons with the electric near field generated by a lower hybrid slow wave antenna is studied. Antenna field spectra of interest for current drive and/or plasma heating have lobes at high-n(parallel to) values (n(parallel to)>30) intense enough for resonant acceleration of the relatively cold (similar to 25 eV) edge electrons. For waveguide electric fields, typically around 3 kV/cm, the higher-order modes overlap in the phase-space [B. V. Chirikov, Phys. Rep. 52, 263 (1979)], so that electron global stochasticity is induced. For Tokamak de Varennes (TdeV) [Decoste et al., Phys. Plasmas 1, 1497 (1994)] conditions and for 90 degrees waveguide phasing, the stochastic limit in the current drive direction is about 2 keV, determined by the last overlapping mode. The progress of electrons through accessible phase space is very efficient: the TdeV 32 waveguide array can accelerate the electrons to the possible limit. An area-preserving map is derived to study the electron dynamics. Surface-of-section plots fully confirm the resonant wave-particle nature of the interaction. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.