On Quasineutral Plasma Flow in the Magnetic Nozzle

Abstract

Exact solutions for quasineutral plasma acceleration of magnetized plasma in the paraxial magnetic nozzle are obtained. It is shown that the non-monotonic magnetic field with a local maximum of the magnetic field is a necessary condition for the formation of the quasineutral accelerating potential structure. A global nature of the accelerating potential that occurs as a result of the constraint due to the regularity condition at the sonic point is emphasized and properties of such solutions are discussed for the case of general polytropic equation of state for electrons.