SCATTERING OF RADIATION BY ALPHA-PARTICLE INDUCED FLUCTUATIONS

Motivated by the possibility of diagnosing alpha particles in a burning fusion plasma by scattering radiation off of the fluctuations that they induce, we model the linear Maxwell-Vlasov theory of the scattering in a homogeneous plasma consisting of electrons, deuterium ions, and alpha particles. The fluctuating electric field is driven by the undressed particle current so that the problem of finding the power spectrum of the scattered radiation amounts to solving a system of linear algebraic equations "driven" by the power spectrum of the undressed current density fluctuations; a coefficient matrix contains the dielectric tensor. Scattering off of field fluctuations is included in the model in addition to the usual scattering off of electron density fluctuations. The model is solved numerically and we compare our results to earlier studies that neglected scattering off field fluctuations and assumed electrostatic shielding.