Nonlinear interaction between Alfvén waves and drift-wave instabilities in LAPD

The Basic Plasma Science Facility (BaPSF) at UCLA is a US national user facility for studies of fundamental processes in magnetized plasmas. The centerpiece of the facility is the Large Plasma Device (LAPD), a 20m long, magnetized linear plasma device
¹
. LAPD has been utilized to study a number of fundamental processes, including: collisionless shocks
²
, dispersion and damping of kinetic and inertial Alfvén waves
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, compressional Alfvén waves for ion-cyclotron range of frequencies heating
⁴
, flux ropes and magnetic reconnection
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, three-wave interactions and parametric instabilities of Alfvén waves
^{6, 7}
, turbulence and transport
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and interactions of energetic ions and electrons with plasma waves
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.