Bohm Criterion of Plasma Sheaths away from Asymptotic Limits

The plasma exit flow speed at the sheath entrance is constrained by the Bohm criterion. The so-called Bohm speed regulates the plasma particle and power exhaust fluxes to the wall, and it is commonly deployed as a boundary condition to exclude the sheath region in quasineutral plasma modeling. Here the Bohm criterion analysis is performed in the intermediate plasma regime away from the previously known limiting cases of adiabatic laws and the asymptotic limit of infinitesimal Debye length in a finite-size system, using the transport equations of an anisotropic plasma. The resulting Bohm speed has explicit dependence on local plasma heat flux, temperature isotropization, and thermal force. Comparison with kinetic simulations demonstrates its accuracy over the plasma-sheath transition region in which quasineutrality is weakly perturbed and the Bohm criterion applies.

Automated summary

This study investigates the constraint of the Bohm criterion on the plasma exit flow speed. The analysis demonstrates that the Bohm speed is explicitly dependent on local plasma heat flux, temperature isotropization, and thermal force. Comparison with kinetic simulations confirms the accuracy of the Bohm speed over the plasma-sheath transition region where quasineutrality is weakly perturbed and the Bohm criterion applies.