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Cold atmospheric-pressure plasma is used widely for treating material surfaces and can be considered for modifying insulation paper (IP) to improve its surface performance. However, the mechanism for interaction between reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are the dominant components of such plasma, and IP is important for setting experimental parameter values but is difficult to observe experimentally. In this paper, reactive force field molecular simulation technology is used to study the mechanism for interaction between ROS (O atoms, OH radicals, and H2O2 molecules) and cellulose, which is the main component of IP. The results show that the ROS can abstract H atoms, and the H2O2 molecules can also abstract hydroxyl groups from a cellulose chain, resulting in changes to the cellulose chain structure, such as reductions of the hydroxyl groups and pyran rings and formations of aldehyde and vinyl groups. The three types of ROS exhibit different reactivities when reacting with the cellulose chain, and the difficulty of breaking different bonds therein also differs, which influences how the chemical groups change the cellulose chain. This study provides basic insight into the mechanism for interaction between ROS and IP at the atomic level as well as offering some guidance for practical experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tutorials also covered the field of plasma physics and introduced some new topics and technologies to plasma physicists that connect to our research. The presentations included four invited review talks, 98 invited talks, four tutorials, and four presentations from this year's prize and award recipients. The 64th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP) was held October 17-21, 2022 in Spokane, Washington at the Spokane Convention Center. [Extracted from the article]

Plasmas 28, 053505 (2021).10.1063/5.0045947 12 J. Moreno, A. Khodaee, D. Okerstrom, M. P. Bradley, and L. Couëdel, " Time-resolved evolution of plasma parameters in a plasma immersion ion implantation source", Phys. However, there is still a lack of understanding of the plasma parameters in the complex mixture gas (radical/ion species, electron/ion energy distributions, temperature, etc.) and plasma physics (electron heating dynamics, electron kinetics, wave-particle interaction, dust plasma characteristics, etc.). The "Plasma Physics and Science in Current and Next Generation Semiconductor Process" Special Topic in I Physics of Plasmas i consists of articles on research presented at The 8th International Conference on Microelectronics and Plasma Technology (ICMAP), which was held in Hwaseong, South Korea, January 17-20, 2021.[1] The "Plasma Physics and Science in Current and Next Generation Semiconductor Process" Special Topic is devoted to understanding such plasma source, plasma parameters, plasma-surface interaction, and processing results in semiconductor process and its related fields, and to bring new insight from theory and experiment for the next generation of plasma process techniques. [Extracted from the article]

10.1063/5.0061234.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BAAE gap represented by the analytic expression, Eq. (9) of Ref. [5], and the Alfvén wave to slow mode coupling analytic dependence obtained in the CKPN paper for the plasma equilibrium at m / n =1.75, =(C s / V A)2= /2=2.5×10-3. Essentially, the only possibly new result reported in the CKPN paper is the claim that they have discovered a new mode for the MHD continuum, which includes, due to finite beta, a coupling of the Alfvén to the acoustic wave. [5] and [8], which show that the modified Alfvén branch, given in Eq. (84a) of Ref. [8], with clear Alfvén velocity dependence, and is opposite to acoustic interpretation of CKPN paper Fig. [Extracted from the article]

In a recent Comment, Chang et al. [Phys. Plasmas 29, 114703 (2022)] have studied the electron dynamics for an electron accelerating in a tightly focused Gaussian laser pulse with the higher order correction terms, and it is found that the initial position of the electron is the reason why the electron is pushed to the −z axis at the end. In this Reply, the electron dynamics and its nonlinear Thomson backscattering in a tightly focused Gaussian laser pulse with the higher order correction terms are presented, and it is found that the result is consistent with the lowest order approximation case in our paper [Hong et al., Phys. Plasmas 29, 043102 (2022)]. Meanwhile, it is also found that when the longitudinal deceleration effect of the ponderomotive force on the electron introduced by the falling part of the tightly focused laser pulse is greater than the longitudinal acceleration effect of the rising part, the electron that is initially stationary will be slightly pushed to the −z axis at the end, which can well explain the "return" phenomenon of the electron in the longitudinal direction both in our paper and in the Comment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue consists of articles on research presented in the Second International Conference on Data-Driven Plasma Science (ICDDPS-2), which was held in Marseille, France, May 13-17, 2019.[1] The ICDDPS-2 follows the initiative launched in 2018 by Sadruddin Benkadda, Deborah O'Connell, and Satoshi Hamaguchi to establish a regular international conference series that gathers a wide spectrum of plasma scientists interested in emerging data-driven methods applied to various topics in plasma science, including plasma-based future medical therapeutics such as cancer treatment, plasma sterilization, sophisticated materials synthesis, and coatings, advanced plasma processing for the manufacturing of next-generation semiconductor devices, and plasma-based clean energy technologies such as thermonuclear fusion and other non-fossil energy sources. Embracing data-driven discovery in plasma science will enable a new era of research and development in plasma science and technology. This conference series aims to stimulate dialog and collaboration among researchers from the wide disciplines of plasma and data sciences. [Extracted from the article]

Two kinds of fluorides are proposed innovatively to modulate the dielectric property of the plasma by reducing the electron density. There is a maximum of 74.41% electron density reduction after the fluorides are injected into the plasma at a magnitude of 1019 m−3, and the corresponding plasma frequency reduction is 49.42%. The fluorides proposed in this paper exhibit a wider modulation range, a faster modulation speed, and a longer maintenance time compared with SF6. The electromagnetic (EM) wave transmission characteristics in plasma are modulated correspondingly. The attenuation of S21 is reduced by 15.11–20.11 dB in 6–18 GHz, and an enhancement in the whole experimental frequency range is observed compared with SF6. The results of the paper can be applied in the mitigation of reentry vehicle's EM wave attenuation induced by the over-dense plasma sheath covering the vehicle. In addition, it also has a potential in broad applications of EM wave and plasma interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We proposed a dynamic mitigation method for plasma instabilities based on a phase control to mitigate plasma instabilities and to smooth plasma non-uniformities [e.g., Phys. Plasmas, 19 (2012), 024503]. In plasmas, perturbation phase would be unknown in general, and instability growth rate is discussed. However, if the perturbation is introduced by, for example, an illumination non-uniformity of an input energy driver beam, the perturbation phase would be defined by the driver illumination non-uniformity itself. When the driver axis is controlled by its axis oscillation or wobbling motion, the perturbation phase would be known and controlled. By the superimposition of the growing phase-controlled perturbations, the overall plasma instability growth is mitigated. The dynamic mitigation method is effective to mitigate growths of various plasma instabilities. At the same time, it was found that the phase of the growing perturbations mitigated would be still defined by the initial imprint. In this paper, the initial imprint effect is focused on the dynamic mitigation mechanism in plasmas. The results in this paper demonstrate that the initial imprint effect is reduced by an appropriate pulse shaping of the oscillating or wobbling perturbation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plasma impedance probes measure the impedance spectrum of an antenna immersed in a plasma. The 1964 work of Balmain remains the standard method to interpret these data, using the peak in the magnitude at the upper-hybrid frequency to infer plasma electron density. The primary limitations of Balmain's model are the assumption of a homogenous plasma and a cylindrical dipole. This work presents a numerical model applicable to inhomogeneous plasma and arbitrary antenna geometry based on the cold, fluid approximation given by Balmain. This model solves Poisson's equation using the finite element method and accounts for the effects of the dipole using the plasma complete electrode model (PCEM). The PCEM is developed in this article and accounts for the voltage shunting effects of the dipole elements, the discrete current to the dipole, and the plasma sheath surrounding the dipole. The sheath is incorporated as a contact impedance between the dipole and the plasma in a manner analogous to the complete electrode model of electrical impedance tomography. The first portion of this paper presents the mathematical framework of the PCEM, starting from Maxwell's equations. The second part of the paper compares the output of this numerical method to Balmain's work and to data collected by an impedance probe in the Space Physics Simulation Chamber at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. The PCEM results agree with both the observed data and the prior modeling done by Balmain. An additional consequence of the numerical study is the observation that some second-order resonances not predicted by Balmain's model can be attributed to the presence of the plasma sheath. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conditions of stratification of a radio frequency positive column plasma in argon over a pressure range from 0.1 to 2 Torr are studied using experiments and particle-in-cell Monte Carlo collision (PIC-MCC) simulations. The PIC-MCC simulations include a simple chemistry model for metastable production and losses, stepwise ionization, and associative ionization. Experiments in a 1.1 cm radius positive column plasma in argon in a 13.56 MHz radio frequency field reveal well-defined standing striations between 0.05 and 1 Torr. Adding a percentage of up to 10% hydrogen in the discharge does not affect the stratification around 0.1 Torr and below. Since hydrogen is a good quencher of argon atoms in the metastable state, this indicates that the presence of metastable atoms plays no role in the stratification of the positive column at this pressure and below. At pressures above 0.3 Torr, the striations disappear with the addition of a lower percentage of hydrogen in the experiment, showing that the presence of metastable atoms is necessary for the formation of striations at sufficiently high pressure. The PIC-MCC simulations are consistent with the experimental results and with the theory based on dispersion relations, presented in a companion paper [J. P. Boeuf, L. Boufendi, M. K. Dosbolayev, S. A. Orazbayev, T. S. Ramazanov, Phys. Plasmas 31, 073508 (2024)], which demonstrates that the negativity of the thermoelectric term related to the Dufour effect in the electron energy flux is responsible for stratification even when metastable ionization is dominant. The non-linearity of metastable ionization with electron density is not responsible for stratification in the conditions considered in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the correlation of hard x-ray and neutron signals, which were recorded with scintillation detectors oriented in the axial and radial directions, in a comparison with interferometric and extreme-ultraviolet radiation frames, as recorded within the plasma focus (PF)-1000 facility operated with a deuterium filling. The considered signals showed two different phases. In the initial phase, the fusion neutrons are mainly produced by deuterons moving dominantly downstream during the disruption of a pinch constriction (lasting tens nanoseconds). In the later phase (usually after about 100 ns), the fusion neutron emission reaches its maximum in the radial directions. This emission (lasting 100–200 ns) is caused by the fast deuterons moving in both the downstream and radial directions. It correlates usually with a decay of dense plasma structures in remnants of the expanding pinch column. This can be explained by a decay of internal magnetic fields. The neutron signal is usually composed of several sub-pulses of different energies. It was deduced that the primary deuterons producing the observed fusion neutrons undergo a regular and repeated temporal, directional, and energy evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the most important results achieved at the spherical tokamak Globus-M2 with a high magnetic field. This paper also covers the most important topics of fusion research: thermal energy confinement in regimes with neutral beam injection, toroidal Alfvén eigenmode and correspondent fast ions confinement issues, L-H transition, turbulence suppression and edge-localized modes' behavior, experimental and theoretical study of regimes with nitrogen seeding that allow to significantly reduce thermal loads on the divertor plates, and experiments and simulations of lower hybrid current drive. The research results provide the basis for the next step toward a fusion neutron source—the development of the Globus-3 spherical tokamak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two recent papers, P. H. Yoon and G. Choe, Phys. Plasmas 28, 082306 (2021) and Yoon et al., Phys. Plasmas 29, 112303 (2022), utilized in the derivation of the kinetic equation for the intensity of turbulent fluctuations the assumption that the wave spectra are isotropic, that is, the ensemble-averaged magnetic field tensorial fluctuation intensity is given by the isotropic diagonal form, ⟨ δ B i δ B j ⟩ k = ⟨ δ B 2 ⟩ k δ i j . However, it is more appropriate to describe the incompressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence involving shear Alfvénic waves by modeling the turbulence spectrum as being anisotropic. That is, the tensorial fluctuation intensity should be different in diagonal elements across and along the direction of the wave vector, ⟨ δ B i δ B j ⟩ k = 1 2 ⟨ δ B ⊥ 2 ⟩ k (δ i j − k i k j / k 2) + ⟨ δ B ∥ 2 ⟩ k (k i k j / k 2). In the present paper, we thus reformulate the weak magnetohydrodynamic turbulence theory under the assumption of anisotropy and work out the form of nonlinear wave kinetic equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the flight of hypersonic vehicle, air will be decomposed and ionized due to the "friction" under ultra-high speed, thus forming a plasma layer. Because the plasma has the ability to absorb and reflect electromagnetic waves, the "black barrier" phenomenon is formed. In addition, when the hypersonic vehicle passes through the atmosphere, the surface temperature rises sharply due to aerodynamic heating, and the surface material undergoes a series of complex changes to form ablation. In this paper, the finite volume method and the laminar finite rate model are used to study the flow field velocity, pressure distribution, flow field temperature, and spatial distribution of each component of the aircraft at different Mach numbers, angles of attack, and heights. In the flow field of supersonic aircraft, N and O are mainly concentrated in the tail of the aircraft, NO is mainly concentrated in the head of the aircraft, and N2 and O2 are full of the whole space. Because of the accumulation of NO+ and O2+ in the tail of the aircraft, the charge accumulation is formed, which will further interfere with the electromagnetic wave signal. The mass fraction of N and O increases with the increase in Mach numbers, while the mass fraction of O2 decreases with the increase in Mach numbers. Different angles of attack will affect the asymmetry of the shock wave of the aircraft. In this paper, the evolution mechanism and distribution characteristics of aircraft plasma are revealed, which lay a theoretical foundation for solving the problem of black barrier and ablation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel design methodology based on a current-tunable magnetic focusing system that can flexibly switch between Brillouin and immersive flow focusing modes is presented in this paper. Such a magnetic system, which comprises cascaded solenoid coils and pole pieces, could be used in beam optics systems of vacuum tubes, particle accelerators, and free-electron lasers. Although the profile of this magnetic system is not brand new, the novel way proposed in this paper to establish and manipulate such a system to fit versatile purposes has never been reported in the literature to the best of the authors' knowledge. The specific structure of the magnetic system should be optimized, starting from the immersive flow focusing mode together with the electron gun design, which will be determined on successful optimization. According to our analysis, such systems could be transformed into the Brillouin bunching mode by simply adjusting the coil currents without modifying the hardware. To verify such an approach, single-beam and multi-beam optical systems are demonstrated in this paper. Moreover, the beam radius in such systems could also be conveniently adjusted via a similar technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses several articles which includes "Accretion disk dynamics, photoionized plasmas, and stellar opacities," "Stellar explosions, instabilities, and turbulence," and "The National Ignition Facility: Ushering in a new age for high energy density science."

The aim of this paper is to explore the possibility of simultaneously characterizing instabilities in vacuum arc thrusters on a broadband frequency range (kHz–GHz) in situ, meaning in a conventionally used vacuum chamber where vacuum arc thrusters are usually operated. We show in this paper that, despite the reverberant nature of the vacuum metallic chamber, useful information is extracted over a large frequency range from the measurements done with an antenna in this environment. This leads to the first characterization of the self-emission of a vacuum arc thruster in the GHz frequency range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is aimed at investigating the role of electrons in creation of currents in plasma equilibria with high plasma pressure (β ≈ 1). Despite the long history of studies of these equilibria, there is still no consensus on what kind of particle species is responsible for the creation of the diamagnetic current and what characteristic size the current layer should have. For example, simulations of isothermal plasma injection into a multi-cusp magnetic trap [J. Park et al., Front. Astron. Space Sci. 6, 74 (2019)] demonstrate the formation of a transition layer with a thickness comparable to the electron Larmor radius, where the equilibrium current is carried by electrons. At the same time, studies of a diamagnetic bubble created by a hot-ion plasma in a mirror trap [I. Kotelnikov, Plasma Phys. Control Fusion 62, 075002 (2020)] assume ion dominance and completely ignore electron currents. In this paper, we show that the equilibrium initially governed by the ion diamagnetic current is unstable against perturbations at the ion-cyclotron frequency harmonics, and this instability forces the plasma to come to a new equilibrium state in which the current is mainly created by the E × B -drift of electrons. The same type of equilibrium is also found to form in a more realistic problem setup when plasma is continuously injected into the uniform vacuum magnetic field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hall thrusters are known to exhibit a large variety of instabilities. Their physical mechanisms have been identified at low (kHz) and intermediate (MHz) frequencies, even though they are still not fully understood. Furthermore, electromagnetic radiations generated by Hall thrusters, named "self-emission" of the thruster, have been measured from kHz to MHz as expected from the identified instabilities, but also at higher frequencies. The origin of the high frequency (GHz) self-emission remains for now unknown. Assessing this self-emission, that is important for understanding the physics of Hall thrusters as well as for electromagnetic compatibility issues with the spacecraft, is challenging. Another aspect that makes the understanding of the physics of Hall thrusters complex comes from the eventual coupling between instabilities, which has been recently suggested and observed. The aim of this paper is to explore the possibility of characterizing simultaneously instabilities in Hall thrusters on a broadband frequency range (from kHz to GHz) in situ, meaning in a conventionally used vacuum chamber where Hall thrusters are usually operated. We show in this paper that, despite the reverberant nature of the vacuum metallic chamber, useful information is extracted at low and intermediate frequencies and even at high frequency from the measurements done with an antenna in this environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present in this Special Issue of Physics of Plasmas the review, tutorial, and invited papers of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Plasma Physics. This was the 52nd year of this meeting, and it was held in Chicago, Illinois on 8-12 November 2010. The meeting program was made up of over 100 review, tutorial, and invited oral presentations, and a significant fraction of these speakers prepared manuscripts which were peer-reviewed and are contained in this Special Issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2008 marked the 50th Anniversary of the Division of Plasma Physics (DPP) of the American Physical Society. This Special Issue presents many of the Review, Tutorial, and Invited papers that were presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the DPP, which was held 17–21 November, in Dallas, Texas. We are very pleased that many of the speakers have submitted an archival-quality version of their presentation for peer review and publication in Physics of Plasmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A foreword to papers from the 49th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics held in Orlando, Florida in 2007, published in this issue of the journal is presented.

In a direct drive laser fusion, nonlocal transport of the more energetic electrons can have at least two potentially important effects. First, the most energetic electrons, furthest out on the tail of the distribution function can cause preheat of the fuel deep inside the target. Second, nearby the nonlocal deposition of less energetic electrons can spread out the ablation layer, possibly having a stabilizing effect on the Rayleigh Taylor instability. This sequence of two papers treats two different methods of modeling nonlocal transport. For about 20 years, these phenomena have been treated with a Krook model for the electron collisions. However, different versions have given different results, especially as regards preheat. Our first paper attempts to analyze the various reasons for discrepancies, correct errors, and derives a variety of simple formula to evaluate preheat. The second paper offers, for the first time, a steady state, nonlocal method of using the Fokker Planck equation to evaluate the nonlocal transport and deposition of energetic electrons deposited by some mechanism, at some particular point in the plasma. Regarding ablation surface broadening, the two models are not very different; but regarding preheat, the Fokker Planck model gives orders of magnitude less. This is a very optimistic result for the direct drive laser fusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs about the papers from the 46th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP) held Savannah, Georgia in the year 2004. The full program of the Savannah meeting included a presentation by the 2004 Maxwell Prize recipients, Valery Godyak and Noah Hershkowitz. The meeting facilitated numerous topical satellite meetings, as well as the highly successful Teacher's Day and Plasma Physics Expo involving teachers and students from area schools. Like the DPP meeting itself, this Special Issue contains exciting research advances and reflects the central themes in today's plasma physics.

Introduces papers related to plasma physics from the 45th annual meetings of the American Physics Society.

The plasma weak turbulence theory is a perturbative nonlinear theory, which has been proven to be quite valid in a number of applications. However, the standard weak turbulence theory found in the literature is fully developed for highly idealized unmagnetized plasmas. As many plasmas found in nature and laboratory are immersed in a background static magnetic field, it is necessary to extend the existing discussions to include the effects of ambient magnetic field. Such a task is quite formidable, however, which has prevented fundamental and significant progresses in the subject matter. The central difficulty lies in the formulation of the complete nonlinear response functions for magnetized plasmas. The present paper derives the nonlinear susceptibilities for weakly turbulent magnetized plasmas up to the third order nonlinearity, but in doing so, a substantial reduction in mathematical complexity is achieved by the use of Bessel function addition theorem (or sum rule). The present paper also constructs the weak turbulence wave kinetic equation in a formal sense. For the sake of simplicity, however, the present paper assumes the electrostatic interaction among plasma particles. Fully electromagnetic generalization is a subject of a subsequent paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel coupling of a kinetic description of neutrals with a fluid description of a fusion plasma. The code, plasma interacting super-atoms and molecules (PISAM), employs a grid-free Cartesian geometry and a direct simulation Monte Carlo approach to solve the kinetic equations of deuterium atoms and molecules. The grid-free geometry and the parallel nature of the neutral dynamics, in the absence of neutral–neutral interactions, allow for an unlimited and work-efficient parallelization of PISAM that always ensures a balanced workload. The highly optimized Python implementation obtains good performance while securing easy accessibility to new users. The coupling of PISAM with the edge turbulence model HESEL is outlined with emphasis on the technical aspects of coupling Message Passing Interface-parallelized Python and C++ codes. Furthermore, the paper presents and analyzes simulation results from running the coupled HESEL-PISAM model. These results demonstrate the impact of radial neutral transport and plasma–neutral dynamics perpendicular to the magnetic field. Specifically, they illustrate how the inward flow of neutral kinetic energy and the inhibition of radial electric shear, resulting from poloidal momentum transfer between atoms and ions, can affect the energy containment time. By comparing the results of the HESEL-PISAM model with those obtained from coupling HESEL with a diffusive-fluid-neutral model, the capabilities of diffusion models in predicting neutral transport in the plasma edge and scrape-off layer are elucidated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract-dynamic plasma sheath can severely interfere with the communication of hypersonic vehicles during atmospheric reentry. Theoretical and experimental results show that low-frequency (LF) electromagnetic (EM) waves could penetrate the plasma sheath, building a feasible method to solve the "radio blackout" problem. This paper discovers that the propagation of LF EM waves in plasmas is still influenced by parasitic modulation effects. Compared to microwave frequencies, the impact of parasitic modulation effects on signal modulation patterns is more distinct for LF EM waves. In contrast to the microwave frequency range, where the rotation direction of QPSK signal constellation points changes with the ratio of plasma frequency to electromagnetic wave frequency, in the LF range, the constellation points undergo limited clockwise rotation. This phenomenon can be attributed to the unique magnetic field propagation mechanism of LF EM waves in dynamic plasmas. This paper analyzes the mechanism of this specific parasitic modulation effect and discovers a sinusoidal transformation relationship between amplitude attenuation and phase shift. Meanwhile, the experimental and simulation results proved that the time-varying plasma could cause the parasitic modulation effect of LF EM wave, resulting in a limited clockwise rotation of orthogonal phase-shift keying constellation points, which is consistent with the theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document serves as a preface to a special topic collection in the journal "Physics of Plasmas" that focuses on the study of relativistic plasma in supercritical fields. The collection includes papers from a mini-conference held at the 2022 meeting of the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics. The objective of the mini-conference was to bring together researchers from different physics communities to address the physics of matter in extreme astrophysical objects and high-power laser systems. The papers in the collection cover topics such as electron-positron pair production, extreme astrophysics, radiation reaction, and vacuum physics. The mini-conference aimed to facilitate knowledge exchange and inspire future research in this emerging field of plasma physics. The authors of this document, Alec G. R. Thomas and Stepan S. Bulanov, declare that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose and were supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Offices of High Energy Physics and Fusion Energy Sciences. [Extracted from the article]

The finite volume time domain (FVTD) method is proposed to accurately calculate the electromagnetic (EM) scattering of hypersonic vehicles coated with non-uniform plasma sheath. The plasma sheath in the actual flight environment is accurately established by solving the Navier–Stokes equations and combining appropriate thermochemical models. The radar cross section (RCS) of metal and uniform medium coated metal targets calculated by FVTD are in good agreement with those simulated by the software FEKO (MoM) and the Mie series. The calculated RCS of the vehicle under the reentry condition is consistent with the flight test data, too. The calculated electron number density distribution is consistent with the flight experiment results. The body fitted structure EM grid is adopted. The EM grid independence of the target coated with plasma sheath is studied. Then, the scattering and plasma EM parameters of the vehicle during the actual reentry are studied. The reentry altitude is from 78 to 55 km, and the reentry velocity is from 6406 to 6350 m/s. With the reentry altitude decreasing, the plasma angular frequency and collision frequency increased gradually. The scattering of different incident conditions and different wall catalytic conditions is analyzed in depth. This paper provides a valuable reference for vehicles' detection, recognition, and stealth during reentry flights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inter-electrode state of the transverse magnetic field contact during the current-zero period is determined by the evolution of the arcing process. It has an important effect on whether the vacuum switch can be successfully broken. In this paper, a series of contacts were subjected to arcing and fixed gap distance experiments. The results show that a special inter-electrode phenomenon (glow flow) appears during the current-zero period when the current exceeds the threshold for the transition from diffused to constricted state of the vacuum arc. The mechanism behind the formation of this phenomenon was elucidated through an analysis of multiple sets of experimental results. It is found that the inter-electrode phenomenon arises from the disruption of the equilibrium process between the pressure from the arc column plasma and the anode vapor flux on the near-anode side at the current-zero. The copper vapor falls and is ionized by collisions with heat-emitting electrons. The experimental results and theoretical analysis also show that this phenomenon has a time interval with the reignition phenomenon. When this phenomenon is intense to a certain degree, the reignition will occur with high probability. The observation and theoretical analysis results of this paper are relatively consistent with the research results of other scholars, which can help to improve the vacuum arc characteristics and interrupting mechanism. This can provide a basis for improving the arc extinction performance of the vacuum switch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the two-dimensional motion of a charged particle in constant mutually perpendicular electric and magnetic fields. The magnetic field is assumed to be uniform, and the electric field components are assumed to be linear functions of the Cartesian coordinates. Under these assumptions, the equations of particle motion can be solved analytically. This solution is used to study the stability of particle motion and to assess the accuracy of the guiding center approximation in the presence of electric field gradients. It is well known that if the gradient of a one-dimensional electric field is sufficiently large, the motion of the charged particles becomes unstable and the particles are effectively energized by the electric field. This paper, however, demonstrates that the instability threshold depends on the spatial derivatives of both electric field components and is, under certain conditions, very sensitive to both. The analytical solution is averaged over the gyroperiod to derive simple expressions for the drift speed and the position of the gyrocenter, which explicitly account for the electric field gradient. The results of this averaging are used to develop equations for tracing the particle gyrocenter location, which incorporate the effects of non-uniformity of the electric field. These equations are shown to be noticeably more accurate than those based on the standard E × B drift velocity, which is exact only for uniform electric and magnetic fields. Simple expressions for the local errors in the E × B drift velocity are also derived, which arise from the electric field gradients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ion fast ignition (IFI) is one of the proposed options for inertial fusion in which the ignition of nuclear fuel is initiated by an intense ion beam. In this paper, the properties of a laser-accelerated heavy ion beam are investigated for the possible use of such a beam as a fuel igniter in the IFI scenario. Using a two-dimensional particle-in-cell code, detailed studies of laser-driven heavy ion acceleration were carried out to determine the possibility of improving the properties of the heavy ion beam relevant for IFI by the appropriate selection of certain laser and target parameters. In simulations, a 1-ps laser with an energy of 150–250 kJ irradiated targets with a variety of atomic mass numbers, areal densities, thicknesses, and densities. For each of the sets of laser and target parameters considered in the paper, the parameters of the heavy ion beam relevant for IFI were determined and discussed. It was found that for realistic laser driver parameters, the IFI requirements are best met by ion beams with moderate ion mass numbers (A ∼ 50–100), such as the beam of Cu ions. It was shown that by optimizing the laser focal spot, as well as by properly matching the energy and power of the laser to the target areal mass density, it is possible to significantly improve the properties of the heavy ion beam relevant for IFI and, in particular, bring a many-fold increase in the intensity, fluence, and energy of the beam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A plasma sheath will be generated around the hypersonic vehicle during reentry, and a large number of electrons in the plasma sheath will seriously affect the communication between the vehicle and the ground station. In order to reduce the electron number density of the hypersonic vehicle plasma sheath, a method of using pulsed discharge active actuation to regulate the plasma sheath is proposed. Based on the air dissociation and ionization model including 11 components and 32 chemical reactions, the reduction effect of pulsed discharge actuation on the electron density of plasma sheath is studied by numerical simulation. A first test is performed in which the pulsed discharge is compared with the plasma jets' experimental data. Then, a second test compared the plasma flow field around the RAMC-II vehicle with the flight test and NASA data. In these two tests, the simulation results are basically consistent with the experimental results. Finally, the effect of pulsed discharge with different energy density on the plasma sheath electron density is studied. The numerical results show that the interaction between the high-pressure aerodynamic actuation generated by the actuator and the plasma sheath produces an obvious shock wave, which blocks electrons from flowing downstream, reduces the velocity and pressure of the flow field behind the shock wave, and, finally, makes the electron density downstream of the actuator attenuate significantly, with the maximum attenuation amplitude of about 35%. Compared with the traditional method, the method proposed in this paper requires less space, load, and source power and has certain engineering feasibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the interaction of electromagnetic waves (EM) with plasma sources under argon and helium discharges has been extensively studied due to its potential applications in plasma stealth. However, nitrogen, as a more economical discharge gas, has been ignored in terms of its absorption of EM waves and stealth effect. In this work, a numerical calculation model combining two-dimensional capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) fluid model and EM wave model was developed to investigate the plasma uniformity degree and broadband microwave absorption effects in helium and nitrogen CCP. It is concluded that the two-dimensional model in this paper has more accurate and reasonable through comparison with the one-dimensional and experimental results in helium CCP. Nitrogen CCP shows better broadband absorption effects than that of helium, and helium plasma has better uniformity than nitrogen under the same discharge parameters. But the uniformity degree of nitrogen plasma is not much different from that of helium under the same electron density, which means that nitrogen can significantly improve its broadband wave absorption properties to some extent without loss of uniformity degree. Based on the above conclusions, the absorption characteristics of nitrogen CCP under different radio frequency (RF) power and pressure are analyzed. The attenuation effect of nitrogen CCP increases with the increasing RF power, and it is interesting that the influence of pressure on the attenuation of EM waves is not monotonically increasing, and the related mechanism is discussed. Finally, discussion of skin depth under different RF power and pressure validates the above conclusions. The absorption band of nitrogen CCP under the best parameters in this work can reach the X-band, which shows great application potential in plasma stealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends the analysis first presented in Jardin et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 245001 (2022)] to more thoroughly examine the stability of spherical torus equilibrium to ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) infernal modes and their nonlinear consequences. We demonstrate that in a 3D resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation of a NSTX discharge, anomalous transport can occur due to these instabilities. We generate a family of equilibrium of differing β and use this to show that these instabilities could explain the experimentally observed flattening of the electron temperature profile at modest β. The modes studied in this paper are found to occur with poloidal mode number m and toroidal mode number n when the ratio m/n is in the range of 1.2–1.5, when the central safety factor is in this range or slightly lower, and when the central region has very low magnetic shear. Our analysis gives some insight as to why the unstable linear growth rates are oscillatory functions of the toroidal mode number n. We present a simulation of an initially stable configuration that passes through a stability boundary at a critical β as it is heated. We also show that a particular NSTX discharge is unstable to these modes over a timescale of several hundred ms. We conclude that these modes must be taken into account when performing predictive modeling. An appendix shows that similar modes can be found in R / a = 4 tokamaks for certain q-profiles and β values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a relativistic quantum many-body theory for the collective modes in spinor quantum electrodynamic plasma. Different from the usual quantization scheme, we use the self-consistency nontrivial background field method in the framework of thermo field dynamics, in which the resulting quanta are temperature-dependent particles instead of the observable ones such as electrons, positrons, and photons. The theory provides a general scheme for many-body physics, which overcomes the disadvantages of random phase, Hartree–Fock, or other equivalent mean-field approximations. The essential point for our theory is to exactly evaluate the background fields. In this paper, we propose a general and efficient method to determine them, which we name as the “classical limit method” for convenience. To demonstrate how to apply the theory, we discuss the collective modes in unmagnetized electron–positron plasma, in both the low-energy and high-energy limits. It yields the well-known dispersion relations of longitudinal and transverse modes for non-relativistic degenerate plasmas, at zero and nonzero temperature. Furthermore, it gives the additional relativistic and vacuum fluctuation corrections, including increasing mass, decreasing effective charge, finite light velocity influence on the dispersion relation, and virtual charge redistribution. The last effect is reported for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each year, the annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP) brings together a broad representation of the many active subfields of plasma physics and enjoys an audience that is equally diverse. The meeting was well attended and largely went as planned despite the interventions of hurricane Sandy which caused the city of Providence to shut-down during the first day of the conference. The meeting began on Monday morning with a review of the physics of cosmic rays, 2012 being the 100th year since their discovery, which illustrated the central importance of plasma physics to astrophysical problems. Subsequent reviews covered the importance of tokamak plasma boundaries, progress towards ignition on the National Ignition Facility (NIF), and magnetized plasma turbulence. The Maxwell prize address, by Professor Liu Chen, covered the field of nonlinear Alfvén wave physics. Tutorial lectures were presented on the verification of gyrokinetics, new capabilities in laboratory astrophysics, magnetic flux compression, and tokamak plasma start-up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to overcome the problem of efficiency decrease in the relativistic backward wave oscillator (RBWO) operating at low magnetic field, an S-band klystron-like RBWO with a three-period slow-wave cavity-chain and a dual-cavity extractor is proposed and investigated in detail in this paper. In the device, several measures are taken to enhance the conversion efficiency at low magnetic field, which include increasing the beam bunching depth by a two-stage modulation structure comprised of a resonant reflector upstream and a three-period cavity-chain modulator downstream, strengthening the energy exchange process from the electron beam to the microwave by a dual-cavity extractor, and optimizing the envelope distribution of the electron beam in the interaction region by adjusting the drift length before the resonant reflector. Under the condition of the guiding magnetic field of 0.28 T, the device could generate a microwave with a power of 4.3 GW, a frequency of 3.79 GHz, and the conversion efficiency of 43.3% in the simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports plasma behavior in an un-magnetized, co-axial electrode geometry DC glow discharge plasma system. Fluctuations and hysteresis in discharge characteristics have been observed when the electrode system has a central anode configuration. The important fact is that fluctuations and hysteresis in discharge characteristics are not observed in a central cathode configuration. The radial profile of plasma potential shows that it is less than the anode potential, so current continuity is maintained in this current-driven system. This paper also attempts to identify the source of order-to-chaos-to-order in floating potential oscillations with respect to the discharge characteristics. When discharge current (Id) increases after the first negative differential resistance region, the system self-organizes and stabilizes into a state of periodic oscillations. Chaotic behavior is a possible development of new dynamical states in the discharge, which develops from an initial high frequency, low amplitude oscillations (in the range 11.6 mA < Id < 15 mA) and, thereafter, transits to low frequency, large amplitude oscillations at Id >15 mA. In the reverse path of discharge characteristics, the oscillations are more regular than in the forward path. Before the production of low frequency, large amplitude oscillations, the current oscillations follow a similar pattern to the floating potential oscillations. As it transits from chaotic to low frequency, large amplitude floating potential oscillations, discharge current oscillations show a chaotic type of behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]