arXiv subjects

Jean-Pierre Boeuf

Publications and source records attributed to Jean-Pierre Boeuf.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

JC-PIC: kinetic (PIC-MCC) simulation of lowtemperature plasmas with a documented library of one hundred test cases

Over the last twenty years, particle-in-cell simulations with Monte Carlo collisions (PIC-MCC) have given the low-temperature plasma community much of what it knows about electron heating in RF discharges, sheaths and secondary emission, striations, and the instabilities of magnetised plasmas. But these results remain in papers, and in codes that only their authors can run. JC-PIC is a free Windows program: a one-dimensional, three-velocity (1D3V) electrostatic PIC-MCC code with a parallel Fortran engine (OpenMP) and a complete graphical interface. It is built around a library of about one hundred ready-to-run cases, each documented, referenced and explained. About half of them reproduce a published result under the original conditions; the others compare the code with a classical analytical result. This overview presents the program, its companion book, and six of the cases from the physics point of view: Langmuir waves from Landau damping to electron trapping, the heating-mode transition in argon RF discharges, the electrical asymmetry effect, the Franck-Hertz experiment treated as a swarm, the striations of a positive column, and the ExB drift instability of Hall thrusters.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2026

Counter-rotating density and current structures in a partially magnetized $\mathbf{E}\times\mathbf{B}$ plasma

The first 3D kinetic simulation of a magnetron discharge reproduces the measured rotating spoke and reveals that density and current rotate in opposite directions: the $m=1$ spoke turns in the $\mathbf{E}\times\mathbf{B}$ direction at 90~kHz while $m\simeq16$ electron-cyclotron-drift-type filaments turn at 1.0~MHz, with no net propagation along $\mathbf{B}$. Magnetic drifts exchange far more energy than they deposit, yet their spoke-front heating sustains the ionization. Following helical paths, the anode-directed current is relayed by de-trapping turbulence at the sheath edge (50\%) and by the spoke channel in the bulk (97\%).

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2025

Benchmark for two-dimensional large scale coherent structures in partially magnetized ExB plasmas -- Community collaboration & lessons learned

Low-temperature plasmas are essential to both fundamental scientific research and critical industrial applications. As in many areas of science, numerical simulations have become a vital tool for uncovering new physical phenomena and guiding technological development. Code benchmarking remains crucial for verifying implementations and evaluating performance. This work continues the Landmark benchmark initiative, a series specifically designed to support the verification of low-temperature plasma codes. In this study, seventeen simulation codes from a collaborative community of nineteen international institutions modeled a partially magnetized ExB Penning discharge. The emergence of large scale coherent structures, or rotating plasma spokes, endows this configuration with an enormous range of time scales, making it particularly challenging to simulate. The codes showed excellent agreement on the rotation frequency of the spoke as well as key plasma properties, including time-averaged ion density, plasma potential, and electron temperature profiles. Achieving this level of agreement came with challenges, and we share lessons learned on how to conduct future benchmarking campaigns. Comparing code implementations, computational hardware, and simulation runtimes also revealed interesting trends, which are summarized with the aim of guiding future plasma simulation software development.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2022

Fluid and hybrid simulations of the ionization instabilities in Hall thruster

Low-frequency axial oscillations (5-50 kHz) stand out as a pervasive feature observed in many types of Hall thrusters. While it is widely recognized that the ionization effects play the central role in this mode, as manifested via the large scale oscillations of neutral and plasma density, the exact mechanism(s) of the instabilities remain unclear. To gain further insights into the physics of the breathing mode and evaluate the role of kinetic effects, a one-dimensional time-dependent full nonlinear low-frequency model describing neutral atoms, ions, and electrons, is developed in full fluid formulation and compared to the hybrid model in which the ions and neutrals are kinetic. Both models are quasineutral and share the same electron fluid equations that include the electron diffusion, mobility across the magnetic field, and the electron energy evolution. The ionization models are also similar in both approaches. The predictions of fluid and hybrid simulations are compared for different test cases. Two main regimes are identified in both models: one with pure low-frequency behaviour and the other one, where the low-frequency oscillations coexist with higher frequency oscillations (with the characteristic time scale of the ion channel flyby time, 100-200 kHz). The other test case demonstrate the effect of a finite temperature of injected atoms which is shown to have a substantial effect on the oscillation amplitude.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2020

Perspectives on Physics of ExB Discharges Relevant to Plasma Propulsion and Similar Technologies

This paper provides perspectives on recent progress in the understanding of the physics of devices where the external magnetic field is applied perpendicularly to the discharge current. This configuration generates a strong electric field, which acts to accelerates ions. The many applications of this set up include generation of thrust for spacecraft propulsion and the separation of species in plasma mass separation devices. These ExB plasmas are subject to plasma-wall interaction effects as well as various micro and macro instabilities, and in many devices, we observe the emergence of anomalous transport. This perspective presents the current understanding of the physics of these phenomena, state-of-the-art computational results, identifies critical questions, and suggests directions for future research

physics.plasm-ph↗