Stimulated Emission of Fast Alfvén Waves within Magnetically Confined Fusion Plasmas

Phys Rev Lett. 2017 May 5;118(18):185001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.185001. Epub 2017 May 4.

Abstract

A fast Alfvén wave with a finite amplitude is shown to grow by a stimulated emission process that we propose for exploitation in toroidal magnetically confined fusion plasmas. Stimulated emission occurs while the wave propagates inward through the outer midplane plasma, where a population inversion of the energy distribution of fusion-born ions is observed to arise naturally. Fully nonlinear first-principles simulations, which self-consistently evolve particles and fields under the Maxwell-Lorentz system, demonstrate this novel "α-particle channeling" scenario for the first time.