Alfven waves and rotation of collisional plasmas in tokamaks

The effect of radio frequency fields on a plasma rotation in the edge (collisional) region of slightly rippled tokamaks is considered. The expressions for poloidal and toroidal velocities and for quasistationary radial electric fields are obtained as a function of absorbed rf power. The estimations of these quantities for the Phaedrus-T tokamak [N. Hershkovitz et al., 15th International Atomic Energy Agency Conference on Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, Seville, 1994 (International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, in press)] are also presented. It is shown that Alfven waves can strongly modify the rotation velocities and radial electric fields in collisional regions of tokamak plasmas. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.