Equilibrium properties of the plasma sheath with a magnetic field parallel to the wall

Abstract

Motivated by the Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF), a systematic investigation of the equilibrium properties of a 1D plasma sheath with a magnetic field parallel to the wall was carried out using analytical theory and kinetic simulations. Initially uniform full Maxwellian plasma consisting of equal temperature collisionless electrons and ions is allowed to interact with a perfectly absorbing conducting wall, which charges positively due to large ions gyro-radii. The analysis of the steady-state plasma and field profiles reveals the importance of the relation between electron and ion thermal Larmor radii and plasma Debye length. In particular, the sheath width scaling, the details of the particle flows and the break-down of force balance components exhibit different behaviors in three possible regimes. Despite our primary motivation, the results in this paper can also be applicable to the divertor and the first wall of tokamaks.