Radio frequency heating induced edge plasma convection: Self-consistent simulations and experiments on ASDEX Upgrade

Plasma heating with waves in the ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) affects the edge plasma and the edge plasma affects the ICRF heating. In simulations, these nonlinear ICRF - edge plasma interactions have been self-consistently simulated by running the EMC3-EIRENE, RAPLICASOL and SSWICH codes in an iterative way on ASDEX Upgrade for the first time. In experiments, the edge plasma convection induced by powered 3-strap antennas is measured with the antenna embedded reflectometers for the first time. Both the simulation and experimental results indicate that the ICRF induced convective cells are most significant on the top and bottom of the antennas; the edge plasma convection induced by 3-strap antennas in optimized antenna feeding configuration (dipole phasing, power ratio between the center and outer straps ∼1.5) is smallest among the studied cases. The simulation results also suggest that compared to the 2-strap antennas, the 3-strap antennas can significantly reduce the plasma convection associated with the radio-frequency sheaths, even with unfavorable power balance between the straps in dipole phasing.