Spacecraft charging in flowing plasmas; numerical simulations

Numerical simulations of the charging of dust particles by contact with hot plasmas

Charging of individual dust particles in contact with hot plasmas is studied by numerical methods. The dust particle is treated as a rigid solid body, composed by either perfectly insulating or conducting material. The collisionless plasma, consisting of electrons and singly charged ions, is simulated by Particle-in-Cell methods in two spatial dimensions. It is demonstrated that the surface con...

Numerical simulations of electron-ion collisions in UHI plasmas

Dust Grain Charging In Tokamak Plasmas

The presence of solid, micro-impurtities in tokamak plasmas has become a topic of great importance. Dust, originating from the reactor wall surfaces as a result plasma surface interactions, has the potential to cause serious safety hazards and confinement issues and therefore the transport of these particle contaminants in the plasma of an operational tokamak is therefore, a matter of great imp...

Importance of Surface Conditions for Spacecraft Charging

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A Threshold Effect for Spacecraft Charging

The existence of a threshold energy dependence is shown for the charging of geostationary spacecraft in eclipse. Applied Technology Satellite 6 and P78-2 (SCATHA) data show that plasma sheet fluxes must extend above 10 keV for these satellites to charge in eclipse. The existence of a threshold energy is significant because magnetospheric convection boundaries produce relatively sharp phase spac...