Magnetosonic waves in the presence of a lower hybrid turbulence and plasma heating

Abstract

A theoretical investigation has shown that energy could be fed into a microturbulence from an externally excited low frequency magneto‐acoustic source. A magnetosonic wave, normally undamped in a quiescent plasma, is shown to be damped in the presence of a lower hybrid microturbulence which in turn effectively heats the plasma ions. This process does not require any threshold amplitude of the external pump wave and therefore, very small amplitude waves can deposit their energy into the plasma unlike the usual parametric heating schemes which demand a minimum threshold amplitude.