Bounce-averaged Fokker-Planck code for the description of ECRH in a periodic magnetic field Original Research Article

A bounce-averaged Fokker-Planck code has been developed for studying electron cyclotron resonance heating of fusion plasmas in a periodic magnetic field, where several classes of trapped particles exist. Such a problem is of relevance, e.g., for the analysis of heating close to the plasma axis in modular Stellarators. The main characteristic of the code is the capability of describing the collisional redistribution between the different classes of electrons of the particle, momentum and energy fluxes driven by the external heating. The solution for the distribution function is obtained by means of a conservative, finite difference, two-step operator splitting scheme.