A particle-in-cell simulation is conducted to investigate the plasma acceleration process in a micro-cathode vacuum arc thruster. A coaxial electrode structure thruster with an applied magnetic field configuration is used to investigate the effects of the distribution of the magnetic field on the acceleration process and the mechanism of electrons and ions. The modeling results show that due to the small Larmor radius of electrons, they are magnetized and bound by the magnetic field lines to form a narrow electron channel. Heavy ions with a large Larmor radius take a long time to keep up with the electron movement. The presence of a magnetic field strengthens the charge separation phenomenon. The electric field caused by the charge separation is mainly responsible for the ion acceleration downstream of the computation. The impact of variations in the distribution of the magnetic field on the acceleration of the plasma is also investigated in this study, and it is found that the ...

中文翻译：

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磁增强微阴极真空电弧推进器中等离子体加速过程的数值模拟

进行了粒子模拟，以研究微阴极真空电弧推进器中的等离子体加速过程。使用具有施加磁场配置的同轴电极结构推进器来研究磁场分布对加速过程以及电子和离子机理的影响。建模结果表明，由于电子的拉莫尔半径小，它们被磁化并被磁力线束缚，形成狭窄的电子通道。拉莫尔半径较大的重离子需要很长时间才能跟上电子的运动。磁场的存在会增强电荷分离现象。由电荷分离引起的电场主要负责计算下游的离子加速。