Particle‐in‐cell simulations of the critical ionization velocity effect in finite size clouds

Abstract

The critical ionization velocity (CIV) mechanism in a finite size cloud is studied with a series of electrostatic particle‐in‐cell simulations. It is observed that an initial seed ionization, produced by non‐CIV mechanisms, generates a cross‐field ion beam which excites a modified beam‐plasma instability (MBPI) with frequency in the range of the lower hybrid frequency. The excited waves accelerate electrons along the magnetic field up to the ion drift energy that exceeds the ionization energy of the neutral atoms. The heated electrons in turn enhance the ion beam by electron‐neutral impact ionization, which establishes a positive feedback loop in maintaining the CIV process. It is also found that the efficiency of the CIV mechanism depends on the finite size of the gas cloud in the following ways: (1) Along the ambient magnetic field the finite size of the cloud, L∥, restricts the growth of the fastest growing mode, with a wavelength λm∥ of the MBPI. The parallel electron heating at wave saturation scales approximately as (L∥/λm∥)1/2. (2) Momentum coupling between the cloud and the ambient plasma via the Alfvén waves occurs as a result of the finite size of the cloud in the direction perpendicular to both the ambient magnetic field and the neutral drift. This reduces exponentially with time the relative drift between the ambient plasma and the neutrals. The timescale is inversely proportional to the Alfvén velocity. (3) The transverse charge separation field across the cloud was found to result in the modulation of the beam velocity which reduces the parallel heating of electrons and increases the transverse acceleration of electrons. (4) Some energetic electrons are lost from the cloud along the magnetic field at a rate characterized by the acoustic velocity, instead of the electron thermal velocity. The loss of energetic electrons from the cloud seems to be larger in the direction of plasma drift relative to the neutrals, where the loss rate is characterized by the neutral drift velocity. It is also shown that a factor of 4 increase in the ambient plasma density, increases the CIV ionization yield by almost 2 orders of magnitude at the end of a typical run. It is concluded that a larger ambient plasma density can result in a larger CIV yield because of (1) larger seed ion production by non‐CIV mechanisms, (2) smaller Alfvén velocity and hence weak momentum coupling, and (3) smaller ratio of the ion beam density to the ambient ion density, and therefore a weaker modulation of the beam velocity. The simulation results are used to interpret various chemical release experiments in space.