Abstract
Particle in cell simulations were carried out with a plasma bounded by two absorbing walls and a magnetic field applied parallel to them. Both the sheath extent and the potential drop in it were derived from simulations for different plasma parameters, such as the electron and ion temperature Ti, particle density, and ion mass. Both of them exhibit a power law dependent on the Larmor to plasma ion pulsation ratio Ωi. For increasing values of the magnetic field, the potential drop within the sheath decreases from a few Ti/e down to zero, where e stands for the electron charge. The space charge extent increases with Ωi and saturates to 2.15 ion Larmor radius. A simple model of sheath formation in such a magnetic field configuration is presented. Assuming strongly magnetized electrons, and neglecting collisions and ionizations, a new typical length is evidenced, which depends on the ratio Ωi. The charge separation sheath width is theoretically found to increase from a combination of the electron gyroradius and the ion Debye length for low Ωi ratios up to several ion gyroradii for strongly magnetized ions. Both the calculated sheath extent and plasma potential show a fair agreement with the numerical simulations.
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