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arXiv · 2504.02750

Investigation of the influence of electrostatic excitation on instabilities and electron transport in ExB plasma configurations

Maryam Reza·Farbod Faraji·Aaron Knoll·Benedict Rose
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Abstract

Partially magnetized plasmas in ExB configurations - where the electric and magnetic fields are mutually perpendicular - exhibit a cross-field transport behavior, which is widely believed to be dominantly governed by complex instability-driven mechanisms. This phenomenon plays a crucial role in a variety of plasma technologies, including Hall thrusters, where azimuthal instabilities significantly influence electron confinement and, hence, device performance. While the impact of prominent plasma instabilities, such as the electron cyclotron drift instability (ECDI) and the modified two-stream instability (MTSI) on cross-field transport of electron species is well recognized and widely studied, strategies for actively manipulating these dynamics remain underexplored. In this study, we investigate the effect of targeted wave excitation on instability evolution and electron transport using one- and two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of representative plasma discharge configurations. A time-varying electric field is applied axially to modulate the spectral energy distribution of the instabilities across a range of forcing frequencies and amplitudes. Our results reveal that the so-called "unsteady forcing" can both suppress and amplify instability modes depending on excitation parameters. In particular, across both 1D and 2D simulation configurations, forcing near 40 MHz effectively reduces ECDI amplitude and decreases axial electron transport by about 30%, while high-frequency excitation near the electron cyclotron frequency induces spectral broadening, inverse energy cascades, and enhanced transport. These findings point to the role of nonlinear frequency locking and energy pathway disruption as mechanisms for modifying instability-driven transport. Our results offer insights into potential pathways to enhance plasma confinement and control in next-generation ExB devices.

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Maryam Reza, Farbod Faraji, Aaron Knoll, Benedict Rose. 2025-04-03. Investigation of the influence of electrostatic excitation on instabilities and electron transport in ExB plasma configurations. https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.02750

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