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| Titel |
Boltzmann electron PIC simulation of the E-sail effect |
| VerfasserIn |
P. Janhunen  |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
0992-7689
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Annales Geophysicae ; 33, no. 12 ; Nr. 33, no. 12 (2015-12-21), S.1507-1512 |
| Datensatznummer |
250121278
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/angeo-33-1507-2015.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The solar wind electric sail (E-sail) is a planned in-space propulsion
device that uses the natural solar wind momentum flux for spacecraft
propulsion with the help of long, charged, centrifugally stretched
tethers. The problem of accurately predicting the E-sail thrust is
still somewhat open, however, due to a possible electron population
trapped by the tether. Here we develop a new type of particle-in-cell (PIC)
simulation for predicting E-sail thrust. In the new simulation,
electrons are modelled as a fluid, hence resembling hybrid simulation,
but in contrast to normal hybrid simulation, the Poisson equation is
used as in normal PIC to calculate the self-consistent electrostatic
field. For electron-repulsive parts of the potential, the Boltzmann
relation is used. For electron-attractive parts of the potential we
employ a power law which contains a parameter that can be used to
control the number of trapped electrons. We perform a set of runs
varying the parameter and select the one with the smallest number of
trapped electrons which still behaves in a physically meaningful way
in the sense of producing not more than one solar wind ion deflection
shock upstream of the tether. By this prescription we obtain thrust
per tether length values that are in line with earlier estimates,
although somewhat smaller. We conclude that the Boltzmann PIC
simulation is a new tool for simulating the E-sail thrust. This tool
enables us to calculate solutions rapidly and allows to easily study
different scenarios for trapped electrons. |
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