Electron behavior in ion beam neutralization in electric propulsion: full particle-in-cell simulation

24th IUPAP Conference on Computational Physics

物理学;计算机科学

Usui, Hideyuki^1 ; Hashimoto, Akihiko^1 ; Miyake, Yohei^1

Graduate School of System Informatics, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokkoudai, Nada-Kobe 657-8501, Japan^1

关键词: Charge neutralization;    Electric propulsion systems;    Electron behavior;    Ion beam neutralization;    Ion beam potential;    Particle-in-cell simulations;    Positive potential;    Potential region;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/454/1/012017/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1742-6596/454/1/012017

学科分类：计算机科学（综合）

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

By performing full Particle-In-Cell simulations, we examined the transient response of electrons released for the charge neutralization of a local ion beam emitted from an ion engine which is one of the electric propulsion systems. In the vicinity of the engine, the mixing process of electrons in the ion beam region is not so obvious because of large difference of dynamics between electrons and ions. A heavy ion beam emitted from a spacecraft propagates away from the engine and forms a positive potential region with respect to the background. Meanwhile electrons emitted for a neutralizer located near the ion engine are electrically attracted or accelerated to the core of the ion beam. Some electrons with the energy lower than the ion beam potential are trapped in the beam region and move along with the ion beam propagation with a multi-streaming structure in the beam potential region. Since the locations of the neutralizer and the ion beam exit are different, the above-mentioned bouncing motion of electrons is also observed in the direction of the beam diameter.