Studies of Plasma Sheath Physics using Continuum Kinetic Simulations of Plasmas
Abstract
We propose to study plasma-material interactions by developing continuum kinetic models and high-order numerical methods to directly solve the Vlasov-Maxwell equations. We plan to develop an understanding of secondary electron emissions, sheath stability, wall erosion, and energy deposition at the wall for applications involving plasma-material interactions with a focus on Hall thrusters. The continuum kinetic treatment will be applied to each of the ion and electron species with the ability to utilize our existing fluid models to pursue hybrid fluid-kinetic algorithms if necessary. As a part of this proposal, we will develop and include surface physics to capture the plasma-wall interaction while maintaining energy conservation in our continuum kinetic solvers. We will also develop and include the appropriate physics for ion-ion, ion-electron, and electron-electron collisions, as well as atomic physics in the form of ionization, recombination, charge exchange, and radiation losses as relevant to the regimes of interest. We will compare our simulation results to available experimental measurements from Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory's Hall Thruster Experiment. Another important outcome of this proposal will be the development of appropriate boundary conditions at plasma-material interfaces with accurate surface physics in different regimes. The insight obtained about boundary conditions using an energy conserving kinetic algorithm can then be applied to hydrodynamic codes to more accurately capture energy deposition and wall effects. This proposal has two primary overarching objectives: Objective 1: Develop high-order accurate and computationally efficient continuum kinetic plasma solvers that treat ions and electrons as separate kinetic species for a range of collisionality while also including appropriate boundary conditions for surface physics and any relevant atomic physics.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 31, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1184953
Entities
People
- Bhuvana Srinivasan