Thermal non-equilibrium nonresonant ions heating via turbulent Alfvén waves

¹ Institute of Fusion Science, School of Physical Science and Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University Chengdu, 610041, China
² Physics Department, Sichuan University - Chengdu, 610041, China
³ The Engineering and Technical College of Chengdu University of Technology - Leshan, 614000, China

^(a) tchangjian@scu.edu.cn (corresponding author)
^(b) xzhang@my.swjtu.edu.cn (corresponding author)

Received: 14 January 2015
Accepted: 13 April 2015

Abstract

The heating of non-equilibrium non-resonant ions with a Kappa velocity distribution via turbulent Alfvén waves is discussed by means of both quasi-linear theory and test particle simulation. The interesting results obtained are as follows: the different thermal non-equilibrium factors (κ factors) possess differing heating efficiencies in the directions perpendicular and parallel to the background magnetic field. This can be confirmed from the simulation result which is consistent with the quasi-linear theory. On the other hand, it is revealed from the physical mechanism that turbulent Alfvén waves can lead to the pitch-angle scattering of non-resonant ions and make the ions stochastic, giving rise to effective heating.