Energetic particle modes in burning plasmas

Abstract

In this work, we present a novel kind of energetic particle modes with frequencies in the range of thermal ion diamagnetic and/or transit frequencies in burning plasmas. It is shown that the continuum structure can be broken by the energetic particles. In addition, the mode destabilization does not require the energetic particle drive to overcome the continuum damping, which indicates that they are much easier to be excited and thus manifest themselves as wide-band modes. Based on the analysis, a switch or even an oscillation between phases of discrete eigenmodes and wide-band modes can be predicted.