Spectral calculations of wave propagation and heating in tokamak plasmas have been extended to 2-D by taking advantage of new matrix inversion techniques that utilize massively parallel computers. By spreading the dense matrix over 576 processors on the ORNL IBM RS/6000 SP super computer, we are able to solve up to 120,000 coupled complex equations requiring 230 GBytes of memory and achieving over 500 Gflops/sec.

Previous wave propagation caclulations in magentized plasmas have relied on an approximation of long wavelength which restricts the applicability of the calculation and eliminates important physics related to harmonics of the cyclotron gyration of the particles. With the new all orders code it has been possible for the first time to obtain obtain solutions in 2D for short wavelength waves in the NSTX spherical torus at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory including very high cyclotron harmonics.

Results are being submitted to APS. press release