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The simulation of plasma double-layer structures in two dimensions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2009

Joseph E. Borovsky  and
Glenn Joyce
Joseph E. Borovsky
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242
Glenn Joyce
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242
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Abstract

Electrostatic plasma double layers are numerically simulated by means of a magnetized 2½-dimensional particle-in-cell method, periodic in one direction and bounded by reservoirs of Maxwellian plasma in the other. The investigation of planar double layers indicates that these one-dimensional potential structures are susceptible to periodic disruption by plasma instabilities. A slight increase in the double-layer thickness with an increase in its obliqueness to the magnetic field is observed. It is noted that weak magnetization results in the double-layer electric-field alignment of particles accelerated by these potential structures and that strong magnetization results in their magnetic-field alignment. Electron-beam-excited electrostatic electron cyclotron waves and ion-beam-driven electrostatic turbulence are present in the plasmas adjacent to the double layers. The numerical simulations of spatially periodic two-dimensional double layers also exhibit cyclical instability. A morphological invariance in two-dimensional double layers with respect to the degree of magnetization implies that the potential structures scale with Debye lengths rather than with gyroradii. Ion-beam-driven electrostatic turbulence and electron-beam-driven plasma waves are again detected. A simplified one-dimensional model of oblique plasma double layers, using water-bag velocity distribution functions, is presented in an appendix.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , February 1983 , pp. 45 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

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