No Arabic abstract
Metal vapour vacuum arcs are capable to generate multiply charged metallic ions, which are widely used in fields such as ion deposition, ion thrusters, and ion sources, etc. According to the stationary model of cathode spot, those ions are generated by electron-impact single ionization in a step-wise manner, which is M -> M+ -> M2+ -> ... mainly. This paper is designed to study quantitatively the role of double ionization M -> M2+ in the breakdown initiation of copper vacuum arcs. A direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) scheme of double ionization is proposed and incorporated into a 2D particle-in-cell (PIC) method. The super-particles of Cu2+ ions generated from different channels are labelled independently in the PIC-DSMC modelling of vacuum arc breakdown. The cathode erosion rate based on PIC modelling is about 40{mu}g/C in arc burning regime, which agrees well with previous experiments. The temporal discharge behaviours such as arc current, arc voltage, and ionization degree of arc plasma, are influenced with or without double ionization negligibly. However, additional Cu2+ ions are generated near the cathode in breakdown initiation from the double ionization channel, with a lower kinetic energy on average. Therefore, the results on spatial distribution and energy spectra of Cu2+ ions are different with or without double ionization. This paper provides a quantitative research method to evaluate the role of multiply ionization in vacuum arcs.
The expansion of a magnetized high-pressure plasma into a low-pressure ambient medium is examined with particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The magnetic field points perpendicularly to the plasmas expansion direction and binary collisions between particles are absent. The expanding plasma steepens into a quasi-electrostatic shock that is sustained by the lower-hybrid (LH) wave. The ambipolar electric field points in the expansion direction and it induces together with the background magnetic field a fast E cross B drift of electrons. The drifting electrons modify the background magnetic field, resulting in its pile-up by the LH shock. The magnetic pressure gradient force accelerates the ambient ions ahead of the LH shock, reducing the relative velocity between the ambient plasma and the LH shock to about the phase speed of the shocked LH wave, transforming the LH shock into a nonlinear LH wave. The oscillations of the electrostatic potential have a larger amplitude and wavelength in the magnetized plasma than in an unmagnetized one with otherwise identical conditions. The energy loss to the drifting electrons leads to a noticable slowdown of the LH shock compared to that in an unmagnetized plasma.
In this proceedings we present MadFlow, a new framework for the automation of Monte Carlo (MC) simulation on graphics processing units (GPU) for particle physics processes. In order to automate MC simulation for a generic number of processes, we design a program which provides to the user the possibility to simulate custom processes through the MadGraph5_aMC@NLO framework. The pipeline includes a first stage where the analytic expressions for matrix elements and phase space are generated and exported in a GPU-like format. The simulation is then performed using the VegasFlow and PDFFlow libraries which deploy automatically the full simulation on systems with different hardware acceleration capabilities, such as multi-threading CPU, single-GPU and multi-GPU setups. We show some preliminary results for leading-order simulations on different hardware configurations.
A simple form of the Boris solver in particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation is proposed. It employs an exact solution of the Lorentz-force part, and it is equivalent to the Boris solver with a gyrophase correction. As a favorable property for stable schemes, this form preserves a volume in the phase space. Numerical tests of the Boris solvers are conducted by test-particle simulations and by PIC simulations. The proposed form provides better accuracy than the popular form, while it only requires few additional computation time.
A preliminary numerical experiment is conducted for laboratory experiments on the generation of magnetized collisionless shocks with high-power lasers by using one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation. The present study deals with the interaction between a moving Aluminum plasma and a Nitrogen plasma at rest. In the numerical experiment, the Nitrogen plasma is unmagnetized or magnetized by a weak external magnetic field. Since the previous study suggested the generation of spontaneous magnetic field in the piston (Aluminum) plasma due to the Biermann battery, the effect of the magnetic field is of interest. Sharp jumps of electron density and magnetic field are observed around the interface between the two plasmas as long as one of the two plasmas is magnetized, which indicates the formation of tangential electron-magneto-hydro-dynamic discontinuity. When the Aluminum plasma is magnetized, strong compression of both density and magnetic field takes place in the pure Aluminum plasma during the gyration of Nitrogen ions in the Aluminum plasma region. The formation of a shock downstream is indicated from the shock jump condition. The result suggests that the spontaneous magnetic field in the piston (Aluminum) plasma plays an essential role in the formation of a perpendicular collisionless shock.
Two dimensional particle in cell simulations of free charge creation by collisional ionization of C12 and C60 molecules immersed in plasma for the parameters of relevance to plasma gasification are presented. Our main findings are that (i) in uniform plasmas with smooth walls two optimal values which emerge for free electron production by collisional ionization (i.e. a most efficient discharge condition creation) are $C60:C12$ fractions of $10:90$ and $80:20$, (ii) in plasmas with rough walls, modelled by comb-like electric field at the boundary, the case of tangential electric field creates significant charge localization in C12+ and C60+ species, again creating most favorable discharge condition for tribo-electrically generated plasma. The numerical simulation results are discussed with reference to recent triboelectric plasma experiments and are corroborated by suitable analytical models.