Multipactor in a coaxial transmission line. II. Particle-in-cell simulations

The effects of nonuniform radiofrequency fields are analyzed for a cylindrical coaxial transmission line using a particle-in-cell code. The behavior predicted by the analytical analysis is confirmed by this study. In addition, by including an initial velocity spread and different maximum secondary electron yields, a more elaborate analysis is performed. It is found that in the case of high secondary emission, an increase in the spread of initial velocities results in an overlapping of the multipactor zones for both double and single sided multipactor. In the other case, when the secondary emission is low, a large enough initial velocity spread can lead to total suppression of the electron avalanche for the higher order modes. Comparison with available experimental data shows good agreement. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.