Majority ion heating near the ion‐ion hybrid layer in tokamaks

Efficient direct majority ion heating in a deuterium‐tritium (D‐T) reactor‐grade plasma via absorption of fast magnetosonic waves in the ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF) is discussed. Majority ion heating results from resonance overlap between the cyclotron layers and the D‐T ion‐ion hybrid layer in hot, dense plasmas for fast waves launched with high parallel wavenumbers. Analytic and numerical models are used to explore the regime in ITER plasmas.