Guiding center atoms: Three-body recombination in a strongly magnetized plasma

Journal Article · Wed May 01 00:00:00 EDT 1991 · Physics of Fluids B; (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.859820· OSTI ID:5847164

Glinsky, M E; O'Neil, T M ^[1]

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1. University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093 (US)

The three-body recombination rate is calculated for an ion introduced into a magnetically confined, weakly correlated, and cryogenic pure electron plasma. The plasma is strongly magnetized in the sense that the cyclotron radius for an electron {ital r}{sub {ital ce}}=({ital k}{sub B}{ital T}{sub {ital e}}/{ital m}{sub {ital e}}){sup 1/2}/{Omega}{sub {ital ce}} is small compared to the classical distance of closest approach {ital b}={ital e}{sup 2}/{ital k}{sub B}{ital T}{sub {ital e}}, where {ital T}{sub {ital e}} is the electron temperature and {Omega}{sub {ital ce}}={ital eB}/{ital m}{sub {ital e}}{ital c} is the electron cyclotron frequency. Since the recombination rate is controlled by a kinetic bottleneck a few {ital k}{sub B}{ital T}{sub {ital e}} below ionization, the rate may be determined by considering only the initial cascade through states of electron-ion pairs with separation of order {ital b}. These pairs may be described as guiding center atoms since the dynamics is classical and treatable with the guiding center drift approximation. In this paper, an ensemble of plasmas characterized by guiding center electrons and stationary ions is described with the BBGKY hierarchy. Under the assumption of weak electron correlation, the hierarchy is reduced to a master equation. Insight to the physics of the recombination process is obtained from the variational theory of reaction rates and from an approximate Fokker--Planck analysis. The master equation is solved numerically using a Monte Carlo simulation, and the recombination rate is determined to be 0.070(10){ital n}{sup 2}{sub {ital e}}{ital v}{sub {ital e}}{ital b}{sup 5} per ion, where {ital n}{sub {ital e}} is the electron density and {ital v}{sub {ital e}}=({ital k}{sub B}{ital T}{sub {ital e}}/{ital m}{sub {ital e}}){sup 1/2} is the thermal velocity.

• OSTI ID: 5847164
• Journal Information: Physics of Fluids B; (USA), Vol. 3:5; ISSN 0899-8221
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
PLASMA
THREE-BODY PROBLEM
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
COLD PLASMA
CRYOGENICS
CYCLOTRON FREQUENCY
DISTRIBUTION FUNCTIONS
ELECTRON CORRELATION
ELECTRON-ION COLLISIONS
FOKKER-PLANCK EQUATION
GUIDING-CENTER APPROXIMATION
MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT
MAGNETIZATION
MONTE CARLO METHOD
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
RECOMBINATION
VARIATIONAL METHODS
COLLISIONS
CONFINEMENT
CORRELATIONS
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
ELECTRON COLLISIONS
EQUATIONS
FUNCTIONS
ION COLLISIONS
MANY-BODY PROBLEM
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
PLASMA CONFINEMENT
640410* - Fluid Physics- General Fluid Dynamics