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    • Effects of initial ion velocity, magnetic field and plasma density profiles in simulating the plasma plume in a Hall thruster

      SUKHMANDER SINGH HITENDRA K. MALIK

      Volume 44 Published: 16 January 2023 Article ID 0003

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      https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/joaa/044/0003

    • Keywords

       

      Plasma plume; Hall thrusters; erosion; magnetic field profile; density gradient; efficiency; performance.

    • Abstract

       

      Hall thrusters have high thrust-to-power ratio, efficiency and specific impulse. Therefore, less propellant mass is required for small satellite missions compared to chemical thrusters. In electric propulsion technology, the thrust is generated by the acceleration of ions in a cross-field plasma configuration. The fast ion bombardment near the exit channel is the main cause of erosion of the walls, which limits the lifetime of Hall thruster. The magnetic field profile controls the exhaust-beam divergence, motion of the energetic particles from the plume and erosion of outer surface of the device, which affects performance of the thruster. So, it is necessary to study the effect of different profiles of the magnetic field and density, and ion velocity on the plasma plume in addition to the impact of collisions between the plasma species. In this paper, we have investigated these effects on the plasma plume potential by considering Gaussian and super-Gaussian profiles for the density. The plasma plume is found to acquire larger potential, if the magnetic field of higher strength is used. The potential of the plasma plume attains a peak value outside the accelerationchannel. The peak of the plume potential gets shifted more outside in the case of Gaussian density profile when the position of the magnetic field peak is shifted towards the cathode.

    • Author Affiliations

       

      SUKHMANDER SINGH1 HITENDRA K. MALIK2

      1. Department of Physics, Central University of Rajasthan, Kishangarh 305817, India.
      2. Plasma Waves and Particle Acceleration Laboratory, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi 110016, India.

    • Dates

       
      Published
      16 January 2023
      Manuscript received
      10 December 2021
      Accepted
      12 September 2022
      Final version published online
      16 January 2023

  • Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy | News

    • Continuous Article Publication

      Posted on January 27, 2016

      Since January 2016, the Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy has moved to Continuous Article Publishing (CAP) mode. This means that each accepted article is being published immediately online with DOI and article citation ID with starting page number 1. Articles are also visible in Web of Science immediately. All these have helped shorten the publication time and have improved the visibility of the articles.

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