A necessary condition for perpendicular electric field control in magnetized plasmas

Abstract

The electrostatic model proposed by Poulos [Phys. Plasmas (2019), $26$, 022104] to describe the electric potential distribution across and along a magnetized plasma column is used to shed light onto the ability to control perpendicular electric fields. The effective electrical connection between facing end-electrodes is shown to be conditioned upon the smallness of a dimensionless parameter $\tau$ function of the plasma column aspect ratio and the square root of the conductivity ratio ${\sigma }_{\perp }/{\sigma }_{\parallel }$. The analysis of a selected set of past end-electrodes biasing experiments confirms that this parameter is small in experiments that have successfully demonstrated perpendicular electric field tailoring. On the other hand, this parameter is $\mathcal{O}(1)$ in experiments that failed to demonstrate control, pointing to an excessively large ion-neutral collision frequency. A better understanding of the various contributions to ${\sigma }_{\perp }$ is needed to gain further insights into end-biasing experimental results.

arXiv comment12 pages, 7 figures

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