次世代電気推進機関のための外部電磁場によるプラズマ電流励起モデル(2007/2008年度宇宙関連プラズマ研究会講演集)

概要

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Electric thrusters, characterized with high specific impulse, are suited to long duration operations such as planetary missions. On the other hand, the performance of many of the conventional electric thrusters is severely limited by electrode wastage. In order to overcome this difficulty, some novel methods of electrodeless discharge and electromagnetic acceleration have been proposed by making use of a compact helicon plasma source. With this application in mind, we here discuss some basic elements on the behaviour of a collisional, cylindrical plasma, when it is driven by an external time-varying electromagnetic field. By introducing a linear response function, we argue that the external field can resonantly drive the plasma to large amplitude oscillations, which may be utilized for the next generation thrusters.