On the possibility to create fully kinetic model for description of the rarefied plasma jet behaviour exhausting Stationary plasma thruster

Аuthors

Bishaev A. M., Kim V. P.^*

Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University), 4, Volokolamskoe shosse, Moscow, А-80, GSP-3, 125993, Russia

*e-mail: riame4@sokol.ru

Abstract

The jet exhausting stationary plasma thruster (SPT) is the accelerated plasma flow consisiting of at least ions, electrons and atoms. Knudsen numbers for all mentioned particle interactions are close or exceeds 1. Therefore an adequate description of such flow behaviour is possible only on base of the kinetic theory. For this purpose the different model equations are created at macroscopic level which are solved jointly with Maxwell equations or some statistical methods of simulation are used (like Bird’s method). And the principal difficulty is appeared in the determination of an electric field in plasma due to the corresponding Maxwell's equations degeneracy. Till now this difficulty was overcomed by usage of the selfconsistent electric field method associated with one or another way of the conservation equations satisfaction by the condition of the electrons and ions densities equality. The problem statement for the fully kinetic description of all particles dynamics simulation in plasma and for determination of the electric field are presented in paper and possible method of this problem solution is discussed.

Keywords:

stationary plasma thruster, rarified plasma jet, dynamic of particles, system of kinetic equations, distribution function of electrons, ions and neutrals, the Maxwell equation (Poisson), electric field, Larmor radius, Debye length, quasineutrality, a small parameter, asymptotic methods, the conservation equations, Newton's potential

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