Electric probes in stationary and flowing plasmas: Theory and application

Collisionless and transitional electric probes are examined, taking into account early theories, the orbital motion limit, questions of cold-ion approximation, collisional effects on probe response, the effect of flow on aligned cylindrical probes under collisionless conditions, and exact theories for current collection by spherical and cylindrical probes in the collisionless limit. Continuum electric probes are considered, giving attention to physical considerations, governing equations and boundary conditions, and the collisionless thin sheath case. Special topics discussed are related to probe-surface phenomena, negative ions, strongly ionized plasmas, turbulent plasmas, and electric probes in magnetic fields.