New Formalism for Modelling Flowing Plasmas in a Magnetic Field
Abstract
A new formalism for modelling a flowing plasma in a magnetic field, having potential for application in plasma thrusters, materials processing, space plasmas, etc., is developed. In this framework, the plasma expands downstream from the source region into an expansion chamber along an axisymmetric magnetic field. For plasma flowing along a magnetic field, the ion velocity parallel to the magnetic field lines is much greater than the perpendicular velocity. This characteristic permits a unique ordering of the relevant flow variables when the flow equations are transformed into a magnetic coordinate system (MCS), in which the coordinate axes are parallel and perpendicular to the field lines. The ordering of the flow variables in the MCS further simplifies the flow equations by allowing them to be split into sets of reduced equations. As a specific implementation, the proposed formalism was validated by using data (for boundary conditions) from a small volume plasma system experiment (Ganguli et al 2016 Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 25 025026). The model shows favourable agreement with the experiments and is used to predict various physical quantities relevant for applications. The corresponding physical implications are discussed in detail.
Related
- On magnetic-field consistency in the sideways force calculation of Phys. Plasmas 27, 012508 (2020)
- Unveiling the stress field in a flowing complex fluid with velocity and microstructure imaging
- Geodesic Acoustic Modes in pair plasmas confined in tokamak magnetic fields
- Nonthermal Particle Acceleration by Magnetic Pumping in Pulsating Plasmas
- Derivation of the Thiele equation for magnetic skyrmions using the Mori-Zwanzig formalism
BibTeX
@misc{bag2026formalism,
title = {{New Formalism for Modelling Flowing Plasmas in a Magnetic Field}},
author = {Subhasish Bag and Ashish Ganguli and Vikrant Saxena and Ramesh Narayanan and Debaprasad Sahu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.16624},
eprint = {2608.16624},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.16624},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - New Formalism for Modelling Flowing Plasmas in a Magnetic Field
AU - Subhasish Bag
AU - Ashish Ganguli
AU - Vikrant Saxena
AU - Ramesh Narayanan
AU - Debaprasad Sahu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.16624
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.16624
AB - A new formalism for modelling a flowing plasma in a magnetic field, having potential for application in plasma thrusters, materials processing, space plasmas, etc., is developed. In this framework, the plasma expands downstream from the source region into an expansion chamber along an axisymmetric magnetic field. For plasma flowing along a magnetic field, the ion velocity parallel to the magnetic field lines is much greater than the perpendicular velocity. This characteristic permits a unique ordering of the relevant flow variables when the flow equations are transformed into a magnetic coordinate system (MCS), in which the coordinate axes are parallel and perpendicular to the field lines. The ordering of the flow variables in the MCS further simplifies the flow equations by allowing them to be split into sets of reduced equations. As a specific implementation, the proposed formalism was validated by using data (for boundary conditions) from a small volume plasma system experiment (Ganguli et al 2016 Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 25 025026). The model shows favourable agreement with the experiments and is used to predict various physical quantities relevant for applications. The corresponding physical implications are discussed in detail.
ER -