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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2015

INDUCED MAXIMUM MAGNETIC FIELD IN COSMIC OUTFLOW SYSTEM BY A RELATIVISTIC CURRENT FILAMENTATION INSTABILITY: EXACT ANALYTICAL MODEL

We present an analytical study of current filamentation instability (CFI) in a fully relativistic cold plasma system, including arbitrary currents. For our purposes, we employ the cold fluid equations, together with Maxwell's equations as well as the plasma shell concept and boost frame method, to obtain an exact solution of the instability growth rate. A simple relation is found for the maximum growth rate of the CFI (for any arbitrary current system), which remarkably is used to calculate the large magnitude of an induced magnetic field in astrophysical environments such as active galactic nuclei (AGNs), microquasars, supernova remnants (SNRs), and stellar winds. We find that the magnetic field is amplified in the SNR up to the level required to justify the recent discovery of the year-scale variability in the X-ray emission of SNRs. Also, the maximum magnetic field of two and three orders higher (or two orders lower) than that of the SNR has been derived for microquasars and AGNs (or stellar winds), respectively. Moreover, making use of the exact analytical solution of the CFI, it is shown that the maximum magnetic field up to around 10{sup 8} G can be detected from a classical cold counterstreaming system after a saturation time.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1993

Ionospheric plasma flow about a system of electrically biased flat plates

The steady state interaction of two electrically biased parallel plates immersed in a flowing plasma characteristic of low earth orbit is studied numerically. Fluid equations are developed to describe the motion of the cold positively charged plasma ions, and are solved using finite-differences in two dimensions on a Cartesian grid. The behavior of the plasma electrons is assumed to be described by the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. Results are compared to an analytical and a particle simulation technique for a simplified flow geometry consisting of a single semi-infinite negatively biased plate. Comparison of the extent of the electrical disturbance into the flowing plasma and the magnitude of the current collected by the plate is very good. The interaction of two equally biased parallel plates is studied as a function of applied potential. The separation distance at which the current collected by either plate decreases by five and twenty percent is determined as a function of applied potential. The percent decreases were based on a non-interacting case. The decrease in overall current is caused by a decrease in ionic density in the region between the plates. As the separation between the plates decreases, the plates collect the ions at a faster rate than they are supplied to the middle region by the oncoming plasma flow. The docking of spacecraft in orbit is simulated by moving two plates of unequal potential toward one another in a quasi-static manner. One plate is held at a large negative potential while the other floats electrically in the resulting potential field. It is found that the floating plate does not charge continuously negative as it approaches the other more negatively biased plate. Instead, it charges more and then less negative as ionic current decreases and then increases respectively upon approach. When the two plates come into contact, it is expected that the electrically floating plate will charge rapidly negative to a potential near that of the other plate.

Herr, Joel L.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Inviscid damping of an elliptical vortex subject to an external strain flow

Inviscid spatial Landau damping is studied experimentally for the case of oscillatory motion of a two-dimensional vortex about its elliptical equilibrium in the presence of an applied strain flow. Here, the experiments are performed using electron plasmas in a Penning–Malmberg trap. They exploit the isomorphism between the two-dimensional Euler equations for an ideal fluid and the drift-Poisson equations for the plasma, where plasma density is the analog of vorticity. Perturbed elliptical vortex states are created using E x B strain flows, which are generated by applying voltages to electrodes surrounding the plasma. Measurements of spatial Landau damping (also called critical-layer damping) are in agreement with previous studies in the absence of an applied strain, where the damping is due to a resonance between the local fluid motion and the vortex oscillations. Interestingly, the damping rate does not change significantly over a wide range of applied strain rates. This can be accurately predicted from the initial vorticity profile, even though the resonant frequency is reduced substantially due to the applied strain. For higher amplitude perturbations, nonlinear trapping oscillations also exhibit behavior similar to the strain-free case. In principle, higher-order effects of the applied strain, such as separatrix crossing of peripheral vorticity and interactions with harmonics of the fundamental resonance, are expected to change the damping rate. However, this occurs only for conditions that are not realized in the experiments described here. Vortex-in-cell simulations are used to investigate the possible roles of these effects.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1976

Repeated-cascade theory of strong turbulence in a magnetized plasma

A two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equation of vorticity in fluid turbulence is used to model drift turbulence in a plasma with a strong constant magnetic field and a constant mean density gradient. The nonlinear eddy diffusivity is described by a time-integrated Lagrangian correlation of velocities, and the repeated-cascade method is employed to choose the rank accounting for nearest-neighbor interactions, to calculate the Lagrangian correlation, and to close the correlation hierarchy. As a result, the diffusivity becomes dependent on the plasma's induced diffusion and is represented by a memory chain that is cut off by similarity and inertial randomization. Spectral laws relating the kinetic-energy spectrum to the -5, -5/2, -3, and -11 powers of wavenumber are derived for the velocity subranges of production, approach to inertia, inertia, and dissipation, respectively. It is found that the diffusivity is proportional to some inverse power of the magnetic field, that power being 1, 2/3, 5/6, and 2, respectively, for the four velocity subranges.

Tchen, C. M.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Modeling of small tungsten dust grains in EAST tokamak with NDS-BOUT ++

In order to investigate the transport of small dusts as well as their evolution property along their trajectories, the NDS module is developed under the BOUT++ framework, a highly desirable C++ code package to perform parallel plasma fluid simulations with an arbitrary number of equations in three-dimensional curvilinear coordinates. Due to the severe dust ablation in fusion plasmas, the dust size would decrease from micrometer to nanometer, resulting in impurities. Small dusts in the simulations here are specified as tungsten spheres with the radii on or below the order of submicrometer. The Rayleigh limit is included in the charging process when the dust is ablated to the droplet phase. The simulation results from the NDS module show that a 200 nm radius spherical tungsten dust originated from upper divertor region of EAST Tokamak is ablated completely due to the intense heating from the incoming plasma inside the core region, well consistent with the CCD footage of EAST shot # 81459. Furthermore it is found that the magnetic field dominates the dust transport when the dust radius is below 100 nm during the ablation along the trajectory. Our simulations predict that a 10 nm radius spherical tungsten dust injected from the inner midplane is well constrained by the magnetic field, and it reaches the inner divertor target with a velocity on the order of km/s.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Dispersion relation and instability for an anisotropic nonuniform flowing plasma

A generalized formula for wave instability is developed for an anisotropic nonuniform plasma with finite flows and temperatures. Six-moment fluid equations are solved to give the analytic expression for wave instability in arbitrarily nonuniform plasmas. The analytic formula explicitly states the dependence of wave instability on the nonuniformities of number density, flow velocity, and anisotropic or isotropic pressure. The accuracy of the formalism is verified by a numerical calculation of implicit dispersion relations in complex Fourier space. The analysis shows that nonuniformity plays a critical role in plasma instability, while the flow velocity and anisotropic pressures determine the growth rate of the instability. Lastly, the instability diagram and associated instability criterion for anisotropy-driven instability are introduced as applications of the formalism.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Exact propagating nonlinear singular disturbances in strongly coupled dusty plasmas

The dynamical response of the strongly coupled dusty plasma medium has recently been described by utilizing the Generalized Hydrodynamic (GHD) model equations. The GHD equations capture the visco-elastic properties of the medium and have been successful in predicting a host of phenomena (e.g., existence of novel transverse shear waves in the fluid medium, modification of longitudinal wave dispersion by elastic effects, etc.) which have found experimental confirmation. In this paper, the nonlinear longitudinal response of the medium governed by GHD equations in strong coupling limit is discussed analytically. The structure of the equations rules out the balance between dispersion and nonlinearity, thereby, forbidding soliton formation. However, a host of new varieties of nonlinear solutions are found to exist, which have singular spatial profiles and yet have conservative properties. For instance, existence of novel conservative shock structures with zero strength is demonstrated, waves whose breaking produces no dissipation in the medium are observed, propagating solutions which produce cusp like singularities can exist and so on. It is suggested that simulations and experiments should look for these novel nonlinear structures in the large amplitude strong coupling limit of longitudinal disturbances in dusty plasmas.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Classical field isomorphisms in two-fluid plasmas

Previous work recognized a new framework for the equations of a multifluid plasma, wherein each species can be described by a set of equations remarkably similar to the Maxwell equations of classical electrodynamics. This paper extends the previous effort to form an exact isomorphism between the multifluid theory and classical electrodynamics. The major benefits of the new formulation are that the explicit coupling between different species is minimized, and theorems and techniques of classical electrodynamics can be immediately applied to the new multifluid formulation. We introduce the exact isomorphism and investigate some of the immediate consequences from classical electrodynamics. To provide a visualization of the isomorphism, previous 1D and 2D numerical simulations are postprocessed and presented to illustrate the generalized fields and source terms.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

The ion polytropic coefficient in a collisionless sheath containing hot ions

The fluid approach has been widely used to study plasma sheath dynamics. For a sheath containing hot ions whose temperature is greater than the electron's, how to truncate the fluid hierarchy chain equations while retaining to the fullest extent of the kinetic effects is always a difficult problem. In this paper, a one-dimensional, collisionless sheath containing hot ions is studied via particle-in-cell simulations. By analyzing the ion energy equation and taking the kinetic effects into account, we have shown that the ion polytropic coefficient in the vicinity of the sheath edge is approximately constant so that the state equation with the modified polytropic coefficient can be used to close the hierarchy chain of the ion fluid equations. The value of the polytropic coefficient strongly depends on the hot ion temperature and its concentration in the plasma. The semi-analytical model is given to interpret the simulation results. As an application, the kinetic effects on the ion saturation current density in the probe theory are discussed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Quantum kinetic modeling of KEEN waves in a warm-dense regime

We report the first fully kinetic, quantum study of kinetic electrostatic electron nonlinear (KEEN) waves, showing that quantum diffraction systematically erodes the classical trapping mechanism, narrows harmonic locking to the fundamental, and hastens post-drive decay. Electrons are evolved with a second-order Strang-split 1D1V Wigner–Poisson solver that couples conservative semi-Lagrangian WENO advection to an analytic Fourier space update for the non-local Wigner term, while ions remain classical. We focus on collisionless dynamics in a weakly coupled regime, providing a controlled baseline before collisional extensions. Short, frequency-tuned ponderomotive pulses drive KEEN formation in a uniform Maxwellian plasma; as the dimensionless quantum parameter H rises from the classical limit to values relevant to warm-dense matter, doped semiconductors, and 2D electron systems, the drive threshold increases, higher harmonics are damped, trapped electron vortices diffuse, and the subplasma electrostatic energy relaxes to a lower stationary level, as confirmed by continuous wavelet analysis. These microscopic changes carry macroscopic weight. Ignition-scale capsules now compress matter to regimes where the electron de Broglie wavelength rivals the Debye length, making classical kinetic descriptions insufficient. By extending KEEN physics into this quantum domain, our results offer a potential diagnostic of non-equilibrium electron dynamics for next-generation inertial-confinement designs and high-energy-density platforms, indicating that predictive fusion modeling may benefit from the integration of kinetic fidelity with quantum effects.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Magnetohydrodynamic-particle-in-cell method for coupling cosmic rays with a thermal plasma: application to non-relativistic shocks

We formulate a magnetohydrodynamic-particle-in-cell (MHD-PIC) method for describing the interaction between collisionless cosmic ray (CR) particles and a thermal plasma. The thermal plasma is treated as a fluid, obeying equations of ideal MHD, while CRs are treated as relativistic Lagrangian particles subject to the Lorentz force. Backreaction from CRs to the gas is included in the form of momentum and energy feedback. In addition, we include the electromagnetic feedback due to CR-induced Hall effect that becomes important when the electron–ion drift velocity of the background plasma induced by CRs approaches the Alfvén velocity. Our method is applicable on scales much larger than the ion inertial length, bypassing the microscopic scales that must be resolved in conventional PIC methods, while retaining the full kinetic nature of the CRs. We have implemented and tested this method in the Athena MHD code, where the overall scheme is second-order accurate and fully conservative. As a first application, we describe a numerical experiment to study particle acceleration in non-relativistic shocks. Using a simplified prescription for ion injection, we reproduce the shock structure and the CR energy spectra obtained with more self-consistent hybrid-PIC simulations, but at substantially reduced computational cost. We also show that the CR-induced Hall effect reduces the growth rate of the Bell instability and affects the gas dynamics in the vicinity of the shock front. As a step forward, we are able to capture the transition of particle acceleration from non-relativistic to relativistic regimes, with momentum spectrum f(p)∝p{sup −4} connecting smoothly through the transition, as expected from the theory of Fermi acceleration.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Solar wind implication on dust ion acoustic rogue waves

The relevance of the solar wind with the magnetosphere of Jupiter that contains positively charged dust grains is investigated. The perturbation/excitation caused by streaming ions and electron beams from the solar wind could form different nonlinear structures such as rogue waves, depending on the dominant role of the plasma parameters. Using the reductive perturbation method, the basic set of fluid equations is reduced to modified Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) and further modified (KdV) equation. Assuming that the frequency of the carrier wave is much smaller than the ion plasma frequency, these equations are transformed into nonlinear Schrödinger equations with appropriate coefficients. Rational solution of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation shows that rogue wave envelopes are supported by the present plasma model. It is found that the existence region of rogue waves depends on the dust-acoustic speed and the streaming temperatures for both the ions and electrons. The dependence of the maximum rogue wave envelope amplitude on the system parameters has been investigated.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1984

Arc-driven rail gun research

The equations describing the performance of an inductively-driven rail gun are analyzed numerically. Friction between the projectile and rails is included through an empirical formulation. The equations are applied to the experiment of Rashleigh and Marshall to obtain an estimate of energy distribution in rail guns as a function of time. The effect of frictional heat dissipation on the bore of the gun is calculated. The mechanism of plasma and projectile acceleration in a dc rail gun is described from a microscopic point of view through the establishment of the Hall field. The plasma conductivity is shown to be a tensor indicating that there is a small component of current parallel to the direction of acceleration. The plasma characteristics are evaluated as a function of plasma mass through a simple fluid mechanical analysis of the plasma. By equating the energy dissipated in the plasma with the radiation heat loss, the properties of the plasma are determined.

Ray, P. K.↗
DOE OSTI2012

Magnetohydrodynamic spin waves in degenerate electron-positron-ion plasmas

Low frequency magnetosonic waves are studied in magnetized degenerate electron-positron-ion plasmas with spin effects. Using the fluid equations of magnetoplasma with quantum corrections due to the Bohm potential, temperature degeneracy, and spin magnetization energy, a generalized dispersion relation for oblique magnetosonic waves is derived. Spin effects are incorporated via spin force and macroscopic spin magnetization current. For three different values of angle {theta}, the generalized dispersion relation is reduced to three different relations under the low frequency magnetohydrodynamic assumptions. It is found that the effect of quantum corrections in the presence of positron concentration significantly modifies the dispersive properties of these modes. The importance of the work relevant to compact astrophysical bodies is pointed out.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Investigation of the sheath formation in a dusty plasma containing energetic electrons and nano-size dust grains

Numerical simulations of the stationary multi-fluid equations are used to study the structure of a dusty plasma sheath in the presence of a beam of energetic electrons. It is found that even a small number of energetic electrons can strongly modify the sheath parameters, specially the sheath thickness. Depending on the magnitude of the beam flux, two different regimes of sheath thickness can be recognized; At small beam fluxes, the sheath is in the regime of thin sheath and its thickness grows linearly with the beam flux. As the beam flux increases, at a certain beam energy or beam number density, the sheath demonstrates a sharp transition to the regime of thick sheath where the width is almost three times larger. The beam parameters corresponding to the transition between the two regimes depend on the parameters of the background plasma. The beam transition energy increases with the electron temperature and dust number density while decreases with the dust radius. On the other hand, the beam transition number density is a non-monotonic function of the background plasma number density. The localization of dust particles above the substrate is intensified by the increase in the beam number density.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Vidyut3d: A GPU accelerated fluid solver for non-equilibrium plasmas on adaptive grids

We present the numerical methods, programming methodology, verification, and performance assessment of a non-equilibrium plasma fluid solver that can effectively utilize current and upcoming central processing and graphics processing unit (CPU+GPU) architectures, in this work. Our plasma fluid model solves the coupled conservation equations for species transport, electrostatic Poisson and electron temperature on adaptive Cartesian grids. Our solver is written using performance portable adaptive-grid/particle management library, AMReX, and is portable over widely available vendor specific GPU architectures. We present verification of our solver using method of manufactured solutions that indicate formal second order accuracy with central diffusion and fifth-order weighted-essentially-non-oscillatory (WENO) advection scheme. We also verify our solver with published literature on capacitive discharges and atmospheric pressure streamer propagation. We demonstrate the use of our solver on two 3D simulation cases: an atmospheric streamer propagation in Ar-H2 mixtures and a low pressure three-electrode radio frequency reactor. Our performance studies on three different CPU+GPU architectures indicate ~ 150-400X speed-up using AMD and NVIDIA GPUs per time step compared to a single CPU core for a 4 million cell simulation with 15 species.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Coupling of electrostatic ion cyclotron and ion acoustic waves in the solar wind

The coupling of electrostatic ion cyclotron and ion acoustic waves is examined in three component magnetized plasma consisting of electrons, protons, and alpha particles. In the theoretical model relevant to solar wind plasma, electrons are assumed to be superthermal with kappa distribution and protons as well as alpha particles follow the fluid dynamical equations. A general linear dispersion relation is derived for such a plasma system which is analyzed both analytically and numerically. For parallel propagation, electrostatic ion cyclotron (proton and helium cyclotron) and ion acoustic (slow and fast) modes are decoupled. For oblique propagation, coupling between the cyclotron and acoustic modes occurs. Furthermore, when the angle of propagation is increased, the separation between acoustic and cyclotron modes increases which is an indication of weaker coupling at large angle of propagation. For perpendicular propagation, only cyclotron modes are observed. The effect of various parameters such as number density and temperature of alpha particles and superthermality on dispersion characteristics is examined in details. The coupling between various modes occurs for small values of wavenumber.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗