On applicability of the thermalized potential solver in simulations of the plasma flow in Hall thrusters

In Hall thrusters, the potential distribution plays an important role in discharge processes and ion acceleration. This paper presents a 2D potential solver in the Hall thruster instead of the thermalized potential, and compares equipotential contours solved by these two methods for different magnetic field conditions. The comparison results reveal that the expected thermalized potential works very well when the magnetic field is nearly uniform and electron temperature is constant along the magnetic field lines. However for the case with a highly non-uniform magnetic field or variable electron temperature along the magnetic field lines, the thermalized potential is not accurate. In some case with magnetic separatrix inside the thruster channel, the thermalized potential model cannot be applied at all. In those cases, a full 2D potential solver must be applied. Overall, this paper shows the limit of applicability of the thermalized potential model. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.