Intense superthermal ion cyclotron emission (ICE) has been observed from tokamak plasmas. The power spectrum displays narrow peaks at multiple harmonics of the background ion cyclotron frequency [Cottrell and Dendy, Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 33 (1988)] in Ohmic deuterium plasmas, and the radiation appears to be driven by the fusion ion population in the edge plasma. Theoretical investigation of this phenomenon may be rewarding, in terms of the information about the behavior of energetic ions in tokamaks that can be extracted from ICE observations. The interpretation presented here is based on the resonant excitation of fast Alfvén waves with ion Bernstein waves supported by an energetic ion species (a) in the presence of a more numerous thermal ion species (i).
