Characteristics of Waves In Plasmas and ICRF Heating

Characteristics of waves in plasmas are introduced based on the dispersion relation of the waves. They are interpreted over a wide area of frequencies, i.e., from below the ion cyclotron frequency to above the electron cyclotron frequency and over a wide range of electron densities of order 10¹⁰. These characteristics are summarized in a Clemmow-Mullaly-Allis (CMA) diagram, whose abscissa and ordinate are a normalized electron density, i.e., (Π_e/ω)², and a normalized electron cyclotron frequency, i.e., (Ω_e/ω)², respectively. Minority ion cyclotron range of frequency heating is discussed using the dispersion relation.