Ion collection by a conducting sphere in a magnetized or drifting collisional plasma

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering, 2011.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Haakonsen, Christian Bernt, 1985-
Other Authors: Ian H. Hutchinson.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/76945
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author Haakonsen, Christian Bernt, 1985-
author2 Ian H. Hutchinson.
author_facet Ian H. Hutchinson.
Haakonsen, Christian Bernt, 1985-
author_sort Haakonsen, Christian Bernt, 1985-
collection MIT
description Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering, 2011.
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spelling mit-1721.1/769452019-04-12T15:33:39Z Ion collection by a conducting sphere in a magnetized or drifting collisional plasma Haakonsen, Christian Bernt, 1985- Ian H. Hutchinson. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering. Nuclear Science and Engineering. Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering, 2011. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 107-110). Ion collection by dust grains and probes in plasmas with a neutral background is of interest in the study of both space and terrestrial plasmas, where charge-exchange collisions can play an important role in ion collection. Further, background drifts or magnetic fields can significantly affect the ion collection by and the potential structure near such objects, and should therefore also be included. These effects, however, are difficult to include in a theoretical treatment, and thus this problem lends itself to a computational approach. To be able to tackle problems with a neutral background, the 3D3v hybrid particlein- cell code SCEPTIC3D has been upgraded to include charge-exchange collisions. This required the development of a new Monte Carlo based reinjection scheme. The new reinjection scheme and other upgrades are described in detail, and the collisionless operation of the reinjection scheme is validated against the old SCEPTIC3D reinjection scheme, while its collisional operation is validated through comparisons with the reinjection scheme in SCEPTIC (2D). The new reinjection scheme can easily be modified to allow the injection of an almost arbitrary distribution function at the domain boundary, enabling future studies of the sensitivity of ion collection to the injected velocity distribution. Studies of ion collection in magnetized or drifting plasmas using the upgraded code extend earlier stationary, unmagnetized results, which showed an enhancement of ion current at intermediate collisionality. It is found that this enhancement is gradually suppressed with increasing background neutral drift speed, and is entirely absent for speeds above the ion sound speed. Adding a magnetic field rather than a neutral drift appears to in fact increase the collisional ion current enhancement. by Christian Bernt Haakonsen. S.M. 2013-02-14T15:20:24Z 2013-02-14T15:20:24Z 2011 2011 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/76945 824566075 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 110 p. application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Nuclear Science and Engineering.
Haakonsen, Christian Bernt, 1985-
Ion collection by a conducting sphere in a magnetized or drifting collisional plasma
title Ion collection by a conducting sphere in a magnetized or drifting collisional plasma
title_full Ion collection by a conducting sphere in a magnetized or drifting collisional plasma
title_fullStr Ion collection by a conducting sphere in a magnetized or drifting collisional plasma
title_full_unstemmed Ion collection by a conducting sphere in a magnetized or drifting collisional plasma
title_short Ion collection by a conducting sphere in a magnetized or drifting collisional plasma
title_sort ion collection by a conducting sphere in a magnetized or drifting collisional plasma
topic Nuclear Science and Engineering.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/76945
work_keys_str_mv AT haakonsenchristianbernt1985 ioncollectionbyaconductingsphereinamagnetizedordriftingcollisionalplasma