Detection of bifurcation in phase-space perturbative structures across transient wave–particle interaction in laboratory plasmas

A key ingredient for realizing a magnetically confined tritium-deuterium plasma fusion reactor is plasma heating by fusion-born high-energy helium ions, as a chained cycle of "nuclear burning." Efficient collisionless plasma heating by high-energy particles is anticipated when their energy is directly transferred to the plasma through waves. Those processes often involve nonlinear structure formations in phase-space, spanned by real-space and velocity-space coordinates, that significantly influence heating efficiency. To date, experimental knowledge of phase-space structure formation physics is severely limited, due to lack of experimental diagnostic schemes. Here, state-of-the-art hardware and software approaches for phase-space perturbative structure detection are introduced. A bifurcation in the phase-space structure formation is found, which affects the plasma heating efficiency. A confinement magnetic field structure is shown to be a potential knob for nuclear-burning control through phase-space manipulation.