Shear flow instability in a partially-ionized plasma sheath around a fast-moving vehicle
- Sensors Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Hansom AFB, Massachusetts 01731 (United States)
- Voss Scientific LLC, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 (United States)
- Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185 (United States)
- Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, District of Columbia 20375 (United States)
The stability of ion acoustic waves in a sheared-flow, partially-ionized compressible plasma sheath around a fast-moving vehicle in the upper atmosphere, is described and evaluated for different flow profiles. In a compressible plasma with shear flow, instability occurs for any velocity profile, not just for profiles with an inflection point. A second-order differential equation for the electrostatic potential of excited ion acoustic waves in the presence of electron and ion collisions with neutrals is derived and solved numerically using a shooting method with boundary conditions appropriate for a finite thickness sheath in contact with the vehicle. We consider three different velocity flow profiles and find that in all cases that neutral collisions can completely suppress the instability.
- OSTI ID:
- 21546934
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 18, Issue 6; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3596534; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
ELECTRON-ATOM COLLISIONS
ION ACOUSTIC WAVES
ION-ATOM COLLISIONS
IONIZATION
PLASMA INSTABILITY
PLASMA SHEATH
POTENTIALS
SHEAR
VEHICLES
VELOCITY
ATOM COLLISIONS
COLLISIONS
ELECTRON COLLISIONS
EQUATIONS
INSTABILITY
ION COLLISIONS
ION WAVES
PLASMA WAVES