Neoclassical poloidal plasma rotation in an ion cyclotron heated tokamak revisited

An equation for the neoclassical poloidal plasma rotation in tokamaks, which applies to ion cyclotron resonant heating (ICRH), has been obtained in an earlier work [Phys. Plasmas 8, 4390 (2001)]. The present work is devoted to a detailed study of the properties of an additional contribution arising from the non-Maxwellian part of the ion distribution. In a first approach, the effect of a temperature anisotropy is modeled by the use of a bi-Maxwellian equilibrium distribution function. In a second approach, the effect of the high energy ion tail is analyzed using the solution of a Fokker-Planck equation valid when ICRH fundamental heating is used. In both cases, a poloidal rotation speed larger than the poloidal ion sonic speed is expected at levels of ICRH power commonly encountered in tokamak experiments. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.