No Arabic abstract
The negative power absorption in low pressure plasmas is investigated by means of an analyical model which couples Boltzmanns equation and the quasi-stationary Maxwells equation. Exploiting standard Hilbert space methods an explicit solution for both, the electric field and the distribution function of the electrons for a bounded discharge configuration subject to an unsymmetrical excitation has been found for the first time. The model is applied to a low pressure inductively coupled plasma discharge. In this context particularly the anomalous skin effect and the effect of phase mixing is discussed. The analytical solution is compared with results from electromagnetic full wave particle in cell simulations. Excellent agreement between the analytical and the numerical results is found.
The kinetic origin of resonance phenomena in capacitively coupled radio frequency plasmas is discovered based on particle-based numerical simulations. The analysis of the spatio-temporal distributions of plasma parameters such as the densities of hot and cold electrons, as well as the conduction and displacement currents reveals the mechanism of the formation of multiple electron beams during sheath expansion. The interplay between highly energetic beam electrons and low energetic bulk electrons is identified as the physical origin of the excitation of harmonics in the current.
In this work negative-ion production on the surface of a sample negatively DC biased in a hydrogen plasma is studied. The negative ions created under the positive ion bombardment are accelerated towards the plasma, self-extracted and detected according to their energy and mass, by a mass spectrometer placed in front of the sample. The use of a pulsed bias allows applying a quasi-DC bias on insulating material during a short period of time and offers the possibility to extend the measurement method to nonconductive samples. The pulsed-bias tests were performed first with Highly Oriented Pyrolitic Graphite (HOPG), a conductive material, to demonstrate the feasibility of the method. By changing the pulsed-bias frequency it was possible to obtain HOPG material with different hydrogen surface coverages and hence different surface states leading to an increase of negative-ion production by up to 30-50% as compared to the continuous bias case. To establish a protocol for insulating materials, charge accumulation on the surface during the bias pulse and influence of the bias duration and frequency were explored using microcrystalline diamond (MCD) thin layers. By using a pulse short enough (10 $mu$s) at 1 kHz frequency, it has been possible to measure negative-ions on MCD sample at a quasi-constant surface bias of 130 V, with only 1 V variation during the measurement. Negative-ion surface production on MCD has been studied in pulsed mode with surface temperature from room temperature to 800{textdegree}C. It is shown that pulsing the bias and increasing the temperature allows limiting defect creation on MCD which is favorable for negative-ion production. Consequently, at 400{textdegree}C the yield on MCD in pulsed mode is one order of magnitude higher than the yield on HOPG in continuous mode at room temperature.
Global gradient driven GENE gyrokinetic simulations are used to investigate TCV plasmas with negative triangularity. Considering a limited L-mode plasma, corresponding to an experimental triangularity scan, numerical results are able to reproduce the actual transport level over a major fraction of the plasma minor radius for a plasma with $delta_{rm LCFS}=-0.3$ and its equivalent with standard positive triangularity $delta$. For the same heat flux, a larger electron temperature gradient is sustained by $delta<0$, in turn resulting in an improved electron energy confinement. Consistently with the experiments, a reduction of the electron density fluctuations is also seen. Local flux-tube simulations are used to gauge the magnitude of nonlocal effects. Surprisingly, very little differences are found between local and global approaches for $delta>0$, while local results yield a strong overestimation of the heat fluxes when $delta<0$. Despite the high sensitivity of the turbulence level with respect to the input parameters, global effects appear to play a crucial role in the negative triangularity plasma and must be retained to reconcile simulations and experiments. Finally, a general stabilizing effect of negative triangularity, reducing fluxes and fluctuations by a factor dependent on the actual profiles, is recovered.
A minimal model for magnetic reconnection and, generally, low-frequency dynamics in low-beta plasmas is proposed. The model combines analytical and computational simplicity with physical realizability: it is a rigorous limit of gyrokinetics for plasma beta of order the electron-ion mass ratio. The model contains collisions and can be used both in the collisional and collisionless reconnection regimes. It includes gyrokinetic ions (not assumed cold) and allows for the topological rearrangement of the magnetic field lines by either resistivity or electron inertia, whichever predominates. The two-fluid dynamics are coupled to electron kinetics --- electrons are not assumed isothermal and are described by a reduced drift-kinetic equation. The model therefore allows for irreversibility and conversion of magnetic energy into electron heat via parallel phase mixing in velocity space. An analysis of the exchanges between various forms of free energy and its conversion into electron heat is provided. It is shown how all relevant linear waves and regimes of the tearing instability (collisionless, semicollisional and fully resistive) are recovered in various limits of our model. An efficient way to simulate our equations numerically is proposed, via the Hermite representation of the velocity space. It is shown that small scales in velocity space will form, giving rise to a shallow Hermite-space spectrum, whence it is inferred that, for steady-state or sufficiently slow dynamics, the electron heating rate will remain finite in the limit of vanishing collisionality.
Reduced fluid models including electron inertia and ion finite Larmor radius corrections are derived asymptotically, both from fluid basic equations and from a gyrofluid model. They apply to collisionless plasmas with small ion-to-electron equilibrium temperature ratio and low $beta_e$, where $beta_e$ indicates the ratio between the equilibrium electron pressure and the magnetic pressure exerted by a strong, constant and uniform magnetic guide field. The consistency between the fluid and gyrofluid approaches is ensured when choosing ion closure relations prescribed by the underlying ordering. A two-field reduction of the gyrofluid model valid for arbitrary equilibrium temperature ratio is also introduced, and is shown to have a noncanonical Hamiltonian structure. This model provides a convenient framework for studying kinetic Alfven wave turbulence, from MHD to sub-$d_e$ scales (where $d_e$ holds for the electron skin depth). Magnetic energy spectra are phenomenologically determined within energy and generalized helicity cascades in the perpendicular spectral plane. Arguments based on absolute statistical equilibria are used to predict the direction of the transfers, pointing out that, within the sub-ion range associated with a $k_perp^{-7/3}$ transverse magnetic spectrum, the generalized helicity could display an inverse cascade if injected at small scales, for example by reconnection processes.