Effects of the applied fields' strength on the plasma behavior and processes in E × B plasma discharges of various propellants. II. Magnetic field

Abstract

The effects of magnetic field intensity on the properties of the plasma discharge and on the underlying phenomena are studied for different propellants' ion mass. The plasma setup represents a 2D radial–azimuthal configuration with perpendicular electric and magnetic fields. The electric field is along the axial direction, and the magnetic field is along the radial direction. The magnetic field intensity is changed from 5 to 30 mT, with 5 mT increments. The studied propellant gases are xenon, krypton, and argon. The simulations are carried out using a reduced-order particle-in-cell code. It is shown that, for all the propellants, the change in the magnetic field intensity yields two distinct plasma regimes, where either the modified two-stream instability (MTSI) or the electron cyclotron drift instability (ECDI) are dominant. A third plasma regime is also observed for cases with moderate values of the magnetic field (15 and 20 mT), where the ECDI and the MTSI co-exist with comparable amplitudes. This described variation of plasma regime becomes clearly reflected in the radial distribution of the axial electron current density and the electron temperature anisotropy. At the relatively low-magnetic-field intensities (5 and 10 mT), the MTSI is mitigated. At relatively high magnitudes of the magnetic field (25 and 30 mT), the MTSI becomes strongly present, a long-wavelength wave mode develops, and the ECDI becomes suppressed. An exception to this latter observation was noticed for xenon, for which the ECDI was observed to be detectable with a notable strength up to the magnetic field value of 25 mT.