An electrodynamic bare tether has been considered as an alternative method of propulsion without expenditure of propellant. The object of the work reported here is the development of a numerical method, Particle-In-Cell (PIC) method, for the calculation of electron current to a positive bare tether moving at orbital velocity in the ionosphere, i.e. in a flowing magnetized plasma under Maxwellian collisionless conditions. In a PIC code, a number of particles are distributed in phase space and the computational domain has a grid on which the Poisson equation is solved for field quantities. The code uses the quasi-neutrality condition to solve for the local potential at points in the plasma which coincide with the computational outside boundary. Given the boundary conditions, Poisson equations is solved in such a way that the presheath region can be captured in the computation. Electrons are assumed to have a Maxwellian distribution at the boundary due to their high mobility, whereas ions are assumed so only in the far upstream region and are also assumed to only decelerate one-dimensionally due to their large mass. Results show that the collected current is higher than the Orbital Motion Limit (OML) theory. As a possible cause of this current enhancement, field oscillation has been recognized and also some numerical effects have been detected.
Computation of a moving bare tether
Space Technology and Applications International Forum - 2001 ; 2001 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 552 , 1 ; 488-493
02.02.2001
6 pages
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
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