Plasma Expansion in Vacuum: Modeling the Breakdown of Quasi Neutrality

We consider a system consisting of a vacuum gap delimited by two electrodes. A quasi-neutral plasma (ions and electrons) is injected from the cathode and expands. Electrons are emitted from the plasma-vacuum interface to the anode forming a beam. In this paper, from a two-fluid isentropic system cou...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Multiscale modeling & simulation 2003-01, Vol.2 (1), p.158-178
Main Authors: Degond, Pierre, Parzani, Céline, Vignal, Marie-Hélène
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied mathematics
Electrodes
Neutrality
Plasma
Simulation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We consider a system consisting of a vacuum gap delimited by two electrodes. A quasi-neutral plasma (ions and electrons) is injected from the cathode and expands. Electrons are emitted from the plasma-vacuum interface to the anode forming a beam. In this paper, from a two-fluid isentropic system coupled with the Poisson equation, we perform a formal asymptotic analysis. This leads to a quasi-neutral model for the plasma region and a Child--Langmuir model for the beam region. The main point of the analysis is the connection between these two models. This is done by studying a transmission layer problem. Finally, we numerically show the accuracy of the asymptotic model, comparing it to the original two-fluid model.
ISSN:1540-3459
1540-3467
DOI:10.1137/030600333