Plasma electron hole kinematics. II. Hole tracking Particle-In-Cell simulation

The kinematics of a 1-D electron hole is studied using a novel Particle-In-Cell simulation code. A hole tracking technique enables us to follow the trajectory of a fast-moving solitary hole and study quantitatively hole acceleration and coupling to ions. We observe a transient at the initial stage o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physics of plasmas 2016-08, Vol.23 (8)
Main Authors: Zhou, C., Hutchinson, I. H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
boundary value problems
Computer simulation
conservation of momentum
electric fields
electron hole plasma
Holes (electron deficiencies)
Kinematics
low pass filters
MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
Maxwell equations
Particle in cell technique
particle-in-cell method
Plasma physics
spatial dimensions
speed of sound
Tracking
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Summary:The kinematics of a 1-D electron hole is studied using a novel Particle-In-Cell simulation code. A hole tracking technique enables us to follow the trajectory of a fast-moving solitary hole and study quantitatively hole acceleration and coupling to ions. We observe a transient at the initial stage of hole formation when the hole accelerates to several times the cold-ion sound speed. Artificially imposing slow ion speed changes on a fully formed hole causes its velocity to change even when the ion stream speed in the hole frame greatly exceeds the ion thermal speed, so there are no reflected ions. The behavior that we observe in numerical simulations agrees very well with our analytic theory of hole momentum conservation and the effects of “jetting.”
ISSN:1070-664X
1089-7674
DOI:10.1063/1.4959871