Effects of in-plane magnetic field on the transport of 2D electron vortices in non-uniform plasmas
Abstract
The formation of electron vortices in current-carrying plasmas is observed in 2D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of the plasma-opening switch. In the presence of a background density gradient in Cartesian systems, vortices drift in the direction found by crossing the magnetic field with the background density gradient as a result of the Hall effect. However, most of the 2D simulations where electron vortices are seen and studied only allow for in-plane currents and thus only an out-of-plane magnetic field. Here we present results of numerical simulations of 2D, seeded electron vortices in an inhomogeneous background using the generalized 2D electron-magneto-hydrodynamic model that additionally allows for in-plane components of the magnetic field. By seeding vortices with a varying axial component of the velocity field, so that the vortex becomes a corkscrew, it is found that a pitch angle of around 20 degrees is sufficient to completely prevent the vortex from propagating due to the Hall effect for typical plasma parameters.
This work is supported by the NRL Base Program.- Publication:
-
APS Division of Plasma Physics Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- November 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015APS..DPPN12076A