Particle-in-cell simulations of parametric decay instabilities at the upper hybrid layer of fusion plasmas to determine their primary threshold

Parametric decay instabilities (PDIs) are nonlinear processes by which energy from a strong pump wave may be directed into other waves at other frequencies, in particular natural modes of the medium, provided that energy and momentum are conserved. The particle-in-cell (PIC) code EPOCH is used to simulate PDIs in a magnetically confined fusion plasma converting a 105 GHz microwave X-mode pump wave into electrostatic daughter waves at the upper hybrid (UH) layer. Modes associated with the PDIs as well as a linearly converted electron Bernstein wave (EBW) are identified in f- and k-space. The PDI daughter modes are found to agree with experimental observations from ASDEX Upgrade as well as with analytical predictions, showing a nonlinear increase in power above a predicted threshold.