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On the limitations of hybrid particle-in-cell for ion thruster plume simulations
Open accessAbstract
A commonly used approach to simulate ion thruster plumes is a hybrid particle-in-cell (PIC) with the Boltzmann relation to model electrons. The limitations of such an approach are investigated by benchmarking hybrid PIC against fully kinetic PIC simulations using the real Xe+ to electron mass ratio (mi/me = 241073). The results show that both full PIC and hybrid PIC lead to similar plume density structures but very different plume potentials. If one could ignore the ion beam neutralization region near the thruster exit, the main physics missing from a hybrid PIC plume model is that from the anisotropic electron characteristics. Including the beam neutralization region leads to further changes in electron temperature and plume potential. Compared to full PIC simulations, the hybrid PIC model results in an overestimation of the plume potential by about 30%–40% in the transverse direction for the simulations considered. Since the electrons in the plume are nonequilibrium and anisotropic, simply replacing the Boltzmann relation with the more general polytropic thermodynamic relation for electrons in a hybrid PIC plume model will not lead to a significant improvement in accuracy.
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“Moreover, the maximum number of available cores for the computational task is no more limited to that of a single physical CPU (nowadays limited to 48-56 physical cores), so that an extremely large speed-up can be achieved (examples exist with speed-up in the order of 1000 286 ).”
From Plasma propulsion modeling with particle-based algorithms (2023) · cites this paper as [286]
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Plasma propulsion modeling with particle-based algorithms
Taccogna, F., Cichocki, F., Eremin, D., Fubiani, G., & Garrigues, L. (2023) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/5.0153862 · Cited by 29
Metadata
- Authors
- Wang, J., & Hu, Y.
- Affiliations
- University of Southern California (US)
- Corresponding author
- Wang, Joseph
- ORCID
- Venue
- Physics of Plasmas
- Publisher
- AIP Publishing
- Published
- 2019-10-01
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 10
- ISSN
- 1070-664X (ISSN-L)
- 1089-7674
- OpenAlex
- W2977320826
- Cited by
- 27
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 3
- FWCI
- 1.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Physics of Plasmas (publishedVersion)
- 中国科学院力学研究所 (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Southern California
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Low-Pressure Plasma Processing and Diagnostics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics › Vacuum and Plasma Arcs
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Space and Planetary Science › Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics
- Keywords
- ion thruster plume, Boltzmann relation, electron temperature, beam neutralization, nonequilibrium electrons, xenon ion beam
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