Investigating Transport Properties of Low-Beta ExB Plamas Using High-Order Continuum Kinetic Simulations

Low-density plasmas in which electric and magnetic fields are orthogonal feature complex transport properties that are not well understood. Such plasmas affect the magnetosphere and are known to limit the performance of low-beta devices such as Hall thrusters, tokamaks, and magnetically insulated transmission lines. In the absence of collisions, kinetic physics dictates the behavior of these ExB configuration plasmas, and thereby particle drifts, microinstabilities, and finite gyromotion can affect mass, momentum, and energy transport. To understand these nuanced dynamics and transport properties, this work investigates ExB environment plasmas using conservative fourth-order finite-volume Vlasov-Poisson simulations in (x, y, v
x
, v
y
) phase space. The enhanced-accuracy solutions feature robust convergence properties, which offer a mathematical check on whether simulations produce the correct answer. The study of isolated kinetic physics is facilitated through the development of a new method for constructing customizable two-species kinetic equilibria with large density and electric field gradients.
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These advances are leveraged to study the linear and nonlinear dynamics of lower hybrid drift instabilities and Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities in the presence of significant finite Larmor radius effects.