Effects of plasma boundary layer on the propagation of an electron plasma wave

The spatial phase of an electron plasma wave shifts towards a transmitter when a dc potential biased on the transmitter approaches the space potential of the plasma.     

Performance of a Feedback Controlled Electrostatic Energy Analyzer for Use with an Ion Beam Probe Diagnostic System

The performance of a feedback controlled electrostatic energy analyzer has been investigated for use as the basic detection mechanism in an ion beam probe plasma diagnostic system. This system provides the only direct, spatially resolved measurement of plasma space potential. The principles involved in analyzer operation are presented, leading to an analyzer system with a design entrance angle of 33°. The voltage correction function which results when the probing beam is swept across the plasma has been measured experimentally and is in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions. The measured amplitude and phase response of the system show that the entire analyzer/detector system may be modeled as a linear feedback system. Finally, a dual beam technique is described for making absolute space potential measuremermts and is substantiated with experimental data from an arc plasma using a Rb-K combination.     

Topology and phase transitions: paradigmatic evidence

We report upon the numerical computation of the Euler characteristic chi (a topologic invariant) of the equipotential hypersurfaces Sigma(v) of the configuration space of the two-dimensional lattice varphi(4) model. The pattern chi(Sigma(v)) versus v (potential energy) reveals that a major topology change in the family Sigma(v)(vinR) is at the origin of the phase transition in the model considered. The direct evidence given here-of the relevance of topology for phase transitions-is obtained through a general method that can be applied to any other model.     

On the possibility of phase transitions in dusty plasma structures in a glow discharge under the action of a magnetic field

The melting of a dusty plasma structure formed in a stratum of a glow discharge caused by application of a magnetic field and its subsequent increase is studied. The images of two-dimensional cross sections of dusty plasma structures previously obtained by the authors are considered. To identify the phase, the correlation functions are calculated and visual comparison with the space lattices of ideal crystals is performed. It is found that, under the conditions of the previous study of the authors, as the magnetic field increases, the phase state of the dusty structure changes from an anisotropic liquidlike (liquid-ice) state to a disordered one. There is a tendency to a change in the type of the space lattice of the structure.     

Influence of vacuum space on formation of potential sheath in plasmas

Properties of potential sheaths developed in plasmas are investigated in terms of the plasma Debye length and the dimension of vacuum space. Biased plasma potential and the potential profile depend very sensitively on the geometrical configuration of plasma and vacuum space. The potential sheath is never developed near electrodes in high-density plasmas where the Debye length is much less than the dimension of the vacuum space. In this case, most of the potential drops occur in the vacuum space and almost no electric field exists inside the plasma. Parametric investigation of the potential sheath in terms of the vacuum-space and plasma dimensions is carried out.     

The Aharonov–Bohm effect in noncommutative quantum mechanics

The Aharonov–Bohm effect in noncommutative (NC) quantum mechanics is studied. First, by introducing a shift for the magnetic vector potential we give the Schrödinger equations in the presence of a magnetic field on NC space and NC phase space, respectively. Then, by solving the Schrödinger equations, we obtain the Aharonov–Bohm phase on NC space and NC phase space, respectively.     

Non-linear free streaming in Vlasov plasma

On the basis of a fully non-linear numerical solution of the Vlasov-Poisson equation we demonstrate that in the Fourier transformed velocity space the free streaming is a non-linear multimode phenomenon. In the transformed space the oscillatory part of the disturbance (plasma oscillations) is uncoupled from its free streaming part (the one that in the linearized treatment escapes into infinity) but the free streaming part is strongly coupled to plasma oscillations. It exercises a complicated movement in the Fourier transformed phase plane accompanied by dispersion.     

Experimental Analysis of a Low Frequency Instability in a Magnetized Discharge Plasma

In the paper we present the results of an investigation of a low frequency (30-100 kHz) instability in a weakly magnetized discharge plasma. The instability is triggered by a disc electrode which terminates the magnetized plasma column and is biased above the plasma potential. Frequency dependence on various parameters, e.g. electrode diameter, electrode bias, neutral gas pressure and plasma density is measured. Space and time dependence of the plasma potential and density in the perturbed region during one period of the electrode current oscillation are measured. During the phase of the current decrease a potential structure moves in axial direction from the edge of the perturbed region towards the electrode. During the phase of current saturation the motion of ions is mostly radial. The observed phenomenon is approximately modeled as a two dimensional potential relaxation instability (PRI).     

Autoresonant phase-space holes in plasmas

Electron phase-space holes are formed and controlled in a plasma by adiabatic nonlinear phase locking (autoresonance) with a chirped frequency driving wave. The process has a threshold on the driving amplitude and involves dragging a void region in phase space into the bulk of the distribution via persistent Cherenkov-type resonance.     

Roles of positively charged dust in the formation of ion-acoustic subsonic solitary waves in electron-ion-positively charged dust plasmas

The electron-ion-positively charged dust plasma system containing Boltzmann distributed electron species, cold inertial ion species, and stationary positively charged dust (pcd) species are considered. The roles of pcd species in the formation of ion-acoustic (IA) subsonic solitary waves (SWs) are investigated by the pseudo-potential approach, which is valid for arbitrary amplitude time-independent subsonic SWs, as well as by the reductive perturbation method, which is valid for the time-dependent small amplitude subsonic SWs. It is observed that the presence of the pcd species reduces the phase speed of the IA waves, and consequently supports the IA subsonic SWs with the positive wave potential in such electron-ion-pcd plasmas. This is due to the reduction of the space charge electric field by the presence of the pcd species. The applications of the work in space environments (viz. Earth's mesosphere, cometary tails, Jupiter's magnetosphere, etc.), where pcd species have been detected, are briefly discussed.     

Hard photon production from unsaturated quark–gluon plasma at two-loop level

The hard photon production from bremsstrahlung and annihilation with scattering that arise at two-loop level are estimated for a chemically non-equilibrated quark–gluon plasma in the framework of Hard Thermal Loop (HTL) resummed effective field theory. The rate of photon production is found to be suppressed due to unsaturated phase space compared to equilibrated plasma. For an unsaturated plasma, unlike the effective one-loop case, the reduction in the effective two-loop processes is found to be independent of gluon fugacity, due to an additional collinear enhancement arising from the decrease in thermal quark mass but strongly depends on quark and antiquark fugacities. It is also found that the photon production is dominated by bremsstrahlung mechanism, since the phase space suppression is higher for annihilation with scattering, in contrast to the equilibrated plasma where annihilation with scattering dominates the photon production.     

Semiclassical description of multipair transfer processes in heavy ion collisions with superfluid systems

Pair transfer processes involving a superfluid system are studied in terms of phase space distributions constructed in a product representation which blends both ordinary- and gauge-space degrees of freedom. The time evolution of these distributions is followed by solving a collection of classical equations of motion, the quantal fluctuations being accounted for by the sampling of all possible initial orientations of the (undetermined) intrinsic system in gauge space. The excitation of the pairing rotational degree of freedom — corresponding to a variation in the number of particles — is induced by a gauge-deformed ion-ion potential, as befits the superfluid character of the target. Different orientations leading to the same final mass transfer may produce (in the case of large pairing deformation) interference effects in the final population of the members of the pairing rotational band. We also discuss how this approach can be used to describe the effect of pair transfer modes on sub-barrier fusion processes.     

Current Distribution of a Cylindrical Antenna in a Warm Plasma

The current distribution of a center-fed dipole cylindrical antenna of arbitrary dimension immersed in unbounded lossless warm plasma is considered, taking into account the commonly neglected end-cap effect. The approximated solution of the integral equation for the current distribution is obtained with the aid of Fourier analysis, and the expression is derived for the current distribution I(z) as the function of position z along the cylindrical surface of the antenna. Sample calculations are made for a half-wavelength dipole antenna with different values of thickness parameter ?=(a/l)<0.25 and of the normalized plasma density parameter po=(?p/?)2 <1. Here a and l denote the radius and the half-length of the antenna, respectively. ?p and ? denote the plasma angular frequency and the radiation angular frequency. The variation of the amplitude and phase of the current with the position, and the variation of radiation resistance with po and ? are examined and discussed in detail.     

Spatially modulated phase in the holographic description of quark-gluon plasma

We present a string theory construction of a gravity dual of a spatially modulated phase. Our earlier work shows that the Chern-Simons term in the five-dimensional Maxwell theory destabilizes the Reissner-Nordstr?m black holes in anti-de Sitter space if the Chern-Simons coupling is sufficiently high. In this Letter, we show that a similar instability is realized on the world volume of 8-branes in the Sakai-Sugimoto model in the quark-gluon plasma phase. Our result suggests a new spatially modulated phase in quark-gluon plasma when the baryon density is above 0.8Nf fm(-3) at temperature 150 MeV.     

Study of density and potential fluctuations in the TEXT tokamakwith a heavy ion beam probe

A heavy ion beam probe was used to study the characteristics of density and potential fluctuations in the TEXT tokamak. Fluctuations of density and space potential are nearly Boltzmann like, n˜/n~φ˜/kT_e, near the edge of the plasma (0.80.9). The turbulent E&oarr;×B&oarr; radial particle flux is sufficient to account for all of the particle loss from the tokamak. No poloidal asymmetries, within a poloidal angle range of about 70°, are observed in the fluctuation levels. The fluctuation spectral shape, the density potential phase angle, and the fluctuation propagation speed show a strong radial dependence     

电推力器流动模拟中的电子处理方法

 分析了电子的准中性假设、玻耳兹曼分布假设、粒子模型在电推力器流动模拟中的适用性和优劣性,提出了一种新的电子处理方法——电子漂移扩散近似,采用该方法模拟了离子发动机栅极光学系统等离子体运动过程。结果表明:该方法得出的电势分布、离子相空间分布及电子数密度分布与经典的电子玻耳兹曼分布假设处理方法计算结果一致,验证了该方法可以很好地应用于电推力器栅极光学系统模拟。     

Characteristic behaviour of plasma fluctuations inside a plasma bubble in presence of a magnetic field due to the formation of a potential well

Experiments were carried out to observe the effect of a magnetic field and grid biasing voltage in presence of a plasma bubble in a magnetized, filamentary discharge plasma system. A spherical mesh grid of 80% optical transparency was negatively biased and introduced into the plasma for creating a plasma bubble. Diagnostics via an electrical Langmuir probe and a hot emissive probe were extensively used for scanning the plasma bubble. Plasma floating potential fluctuations were measured at three different positions of the plasma bubble. The instability in the pattern showed the dynamic transition from periodic to chaotic for increasing magnetic fields. Time scale analysis using continuous wavelet transform was carried out to identify the presence of non‐linearity from the contour plots. The mechanisms of the low‐frequency instabilities along with the transition to chaos could be qualitatively explained. Non‐linear techniques such as fast Fourier transform, phase space plot, and recurrence plot were used to explore the dynamics of the system appearing during plasma fluctuations. In order to demonstrate the observed chaotic phenomena in this study, characteristics of chaos such as the Lyapunov exponent were obtained from experimental time series data. The experimentally observed potential structure is confirmed with numerical analysis based on fluid hydrodynamics.     

Images of the phase space diagrams during the unfurling of theelectrons when a plasma expands into a plasma

Using a 1-D1v (one dimension for space, one for velocity) electrostatic particle-in-cell (PIC) code, we simulate the dynamics of the expansion of a plasma into a limited plasma, between two polarized electrodes. We show the phase space diagrams for the two electron families, on which we observe the electron unfurling. The unfurling branches are observed to fold up on the others. The velocity distribution is broadened: the electron population is heated     

具有非广延分布电子的碰撞等离子体磁鞘的结构

很多关于等离子体鞘层的研究工作都是基于电子满足经典的麦克斯韦速度分布函数,而等离子体中的粒子具有长程电磁相互作用,使用Tsallis提出的非广延分布来描述电子更为恰当.本文建立一个具有非广延分布电子的碰撞等离子体磁鞘模型,理论推导出受非广延参数q影响的玻姆判据,离子马赫数的下限数值会随着参数q的增大而减小.经过数值模拟,发现与具有麦克斯韦分布(q=1)电子的碰撞等离子体磁鞘对比,具有超广延分布(q<1)和亚广延分布(q>1)电子的碰撞等离子体磁鞘的结构各有不同,包括空间电势分布、离子电子密度分布、空间电荷密度分布.模拟结果显示非广延分布的参数q对碰撞等离子体磁鞘的结构具有不可忽略的影响.希望这些结论对相关的天体物理、等离子体边界问题的研究有参考价值.     

The electrostatic potential induced by a fast charged particle passing parallel to a planar sheet of two-dimensional plasma

This paper presents a calculation for the screened electrostatic Coulomb potential of a fast particle interacting with a sheet of two-dimensional (2D) plasma. The particle motion is taken to be parallel to the 2D plasma sheet and the plasma is in its ground state. The density perturbation response properties of the plasma are described in the random phase approximation. The screened effective potential is calculated as a function of the distance of the particle from the plane of the 2D plasma, and its velocity.