On The Role Of Laboratory Plasmas For Space Research--a Case Study--Alfven Successive Wave Heating Of A Two-ion Species Mirror Plasma

Heating by Alfven waves in multi-ion species plasmas has been identified as important in space plasmas. This problem is particularly interesting because the presence of two ions species allows mode conversion between shear Alfven and magnetosonic waves. Ion heating by ICRF (waves in the Ion Cyclotron Range of Frequencies) in a laboratory mirror geometry has been investigated in single and two ion species plasmas. There are some major differences between laboratory and space plasmas. The most important is that for ICRF it is difficult to achieve wavelengths that are small compared to the size of the device. Consequently, laboratory plasmas are dominated by the presence of radial rf eigenmodes. It is uncertain whether such eigenmodes are relevant to space plasmas.