Diverse wave-particle interactions for energetic ions that traverse Alfven eigenmodes on their first full orbit

Neutral-beam ions that are deflected onto loss orbits by Alfven eigenmodes (AE) on their first bounce orbit and are detected by a fast-ion loss detector (FILD) satisfy the local resonance condition proposed by Zhang et al. [Nucl. Fusion 55, 22002 (2015)]. This theory qualitatively explains FILD observations for a wide variety of AE-particle interactions. When coherent losses are measured for multiple AE, oscillations at the sum and difference frequencies of the independent modes are often observed in the loss signal. The amplitudes of the sum and difference peaks correlate weakly with the amplitudes of the fundamental loss-signal amplitudes but do not correlate with the measured mode amplitudes. In contrast to a simple uniform-plasma theory of the interaction [Chen et al., Nucl. Fusion 54, 083005 (2014)], the loss-signal amplitude at the sum frequency is often larger than the loss-signal amplitude at the difference frequency, indicating a more detailed computation of the orbital trajectories through the mode eigenfunctions is needed. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.