Recent progress in the interaction between energetic particles and tearing modes

The dynamics of energetic particles and tearing modes and the interactions between them are of great significance for magnetically confined fusion plasmas. In this review, we focus on these issues in the context of tokamak plasmas. The interaction between energetic particles and tearing modes is considered from two perspectives: (i) the influence of energetic particles on tearing modes and (ii) the transport of energetic particles by tearing modes. The influence of energetic particles on tearing modes is described on the basis of a general dispersion relation for tearing modes. The effects of energetic particles are considered separately in the outer region and the island region of a tearing mode. The physics mainly results from the modification of the perturbed parallel current by energetic particles without wave–particle resonance. In addition, the resonance between energetic particles and tearing modes is also reviewed. For the transport of energetic particles, transport of both circulating and trapped energetic particles by tearing mode is reviewed. Our descriptions of physical phenomena here are based on an analytical approach, while the experiments and simulations are used to illustrate and confirm our results. Finally, a number of open issues are discussed.