Study of similarity rules for electromagnetic process in partially ionized plasmas

Abstract

As proved by a previous study, the similarity of electromagnetic processes in plasmas will be violated by Coulomb collisions between electron and ions. Therefore, there is no similarity in highly ionized collisional plasma. However, the situation will be completely different for collisional plasmas with a low ionization degree. The main collision type will change from electron–ion Coulomb collision to electron–molecule collision, and a new variable (the number density of neutral molecules) will be introduced into the similarity constraint, which can increase the degree of freedom. Thus, in this condition, the similarity restriction caused by the collision process does not conflict with the other restrictions. Therefore, the similarity for the electromagnetic process in collisional plasmas can be valid for partially ionized plasmas. In this paper, we propose the similarity in partially ionized plasmas and prove it via particle in cell/Monte Carlo simulation. Our research has a wide range of engineering applications.