title: Collisional damping of electron bernstein waves and its mitigation by evaporated lithium conditioning in spherical-tokamak plasmas.
abstract: The first experimental verification of electron Bernstein wave (EBW) collisional damping, and its mitigation by evaporated Li conditioning, in an overdense spherical-tokamak plasma has been observed in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). Initial measurements of EBW emission, coupled from NSTX plasmas via double-mode conversion to O-mode waves, exhibited <10% transmission efficiencies. Simulations show 80% of the EBW energy is dissipated by collisions in the edge plasma. Li conditioning reduced the edge collision frequency by a factor of 3 and increased the fundamental EBW transmission to 60%.
authors: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge 37831, Tennessee, USA.
authors: S J
authors: SJ
authors: Diem
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Taylor
authors: J B
authors: JB
authors: Caughman
authors: P C
authors: PC
authors: Efthimion
authors: H
authors: H
authors: Kugel
authors: B P
authors: BP
authors: LeBlanc
authors: C K
authors: CK
authors: Phillips
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Preinhaelter
authors: S A
authors: SA
authors: Sabbagh
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Urban