336 research outputs found
Self consistent kinetic simulations of SPT and HEMP thrusters including the near-field plume region
The Particle-in-Cell (PIC) method was used to study two different ion
thruster concepts - Stationary Plasma Thrusters (SPT) and High Efficiency
Multistage Plasma Thrusters (HEMP-T), in particular the plasma properties in
the discharge chamber due to the different magnetic field configurations.
Special attention was paid to the simulation of plasma particle fluxes on the
thrusters channel surfaces. In both cases, PIC proved itself as a powerful
tool, delivering important insight into the basic physics of the different
thruster concepts. The simulations demonstrated that the new HEMP thruster
concept allows for a high thermal efficiency due to both minimal energy
dissipation and high acceleration efficiency. In the HEMP thruster the plasma
contact to the wall is limited only to very small areas of the magnetic field
cusps, which results in much smaller ion energy flux to the thruster channel
surface as compared to SPT. The erosion yields for dielectric discharge channel
walls of SPT and HEMP thrusters were calculated with the binary collision code
SDTrimSP. For SPT, an erosion rate on the level of 1 mm of sputtered material
per hour was observed. For HEMP, thruster simulations have shown that there is
no erosion inside the dielectric discharge channel.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures This work was presented at 21st International
Conference on Numerical Simulation of Plasmas (ICNSP'09
Solutioin of Poisson's Equation in Electrostatic Particle-on-cell Simulation
In electrostatic Particle-in-Cell simulations of the HEMP-DM3a ion thruster the role of different solution strategies for Poisson?s equation was investigated. The direct solution method of LU decomposition is compared to a stationary iterative method, the successive over-relaxation solver. Results and runtime of solvers were compared, and an outlook on further improvements and developments is presented
Radio-frequency discharges in Oxygen. Part 1: Modeling
In this series of three papers we present results from a combined
experimental and theoretical effort to quantitatively describe capacitively
coupled radio-frequency discharges in oxygen. The particle-in-cell Monte-Carlo
model on which the theoretical description is based will be described in the
present paper. It treats space charge fields and transport processes on an
equal footing with the most important plasma-chemical reactions. For given
external voltage and pressure, the model determines the electric potential
within the discharge and the distribution functions for electrons, negatively
charged atomic oxygen, and positively charged molecular oxygen. Previously used
scattering and reaction cross section data are critically assessed and in some
cases modified. To validate our model, we compare the densities in the bulk of
the discharge with experimental data and find good agreement, indicating that
essential aspects of an oxygen discharge are captured.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure
Influence of Electron Sources on the Near-field Plume in a Multistage Plasma Thruster
n order to obtain a better understanding of the near-field plume of a multistage plasma thruster, the influence of an external electron source is investigated by Particle-In-Cell simulations. The variation of the source position showed a strong influence of the magnetic field configuration on the electron distribution and therefore on the plume plasma. In the second part of this work, higher energetic electrons were injected in order to model collision-induced diffusion in the plume. This broadens the electron distribution, which leads to a more pronounced divergence angle in the angular ion distribution
Comparative study of semiclassical approaches to quantum dynamics
Quantum states can be described equivalently by density matrices, Wigner
functions or quantum tomograms. We analyze the accuracy and performance of
three related semiclassical approaches to quantum dynamics, in particular with
respect to their numerical implementation. As test cases, we consider the time
evolution of Gaussian wave packets in different one-dimensional geometries,
whereby tunneling, resonance and anharmonicity effects are taken into account.
The results and methods are benchmarked against an exact quantum mechanical
treatment of the system, which is based on a highly efficient Chebyshev
expansion technique of the time evolution operator.Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures, corrected typos and added references; version as
publishe
On the Wake Structure in Streaming Complex Plasmas
The theoretical description of complex (dusty) plasmas requires multiscale
concepts that adequately incorporate the correlated interplay of streaming
electrons and ions, neutrals, and dust grains. Knowing the effective dust-dust
interaction, the multiscale problem can be effectively reduced to a
one-component plasma model of the dust subsystem. The goal of the present
publication is a systematic evaluation of the electrostatic potential
distribution around a dust grain in the presence of a streaming plasma
environment by means of two complementary approaches: (i) a high precision
computation of the dynamically screened Coulomb potential from the dynamic
dielectric function, and (ii) full 3D particle-in-cell simulations, which
self-consistently include dynamical grain charging and non-linear effects. The
applicability of these two approaches is addressed
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