Self-Consistent Description of Radial Space-Charge Confinement in DC Column Plasmas

A new method for the self-consistent description of radial space-charge confinement and the corresponding nonlocal kinetics of plasma components in the cylindrical dc column plasma is presented. The method comprises the solution of the space-dependent kinetic equation of the electron component, the fluid equations of ions and excited neutral particles and Poissonʹs equation. The nonlinearly coupled equations are solved self-consistently applying a nonlinear optimization technique, which is used to optimize a polynomial representation of the radial space-charge potential. The applicability of several optimization methods and their suitability concerning the convergence and accuracy are discussed. Examples of the self-consistent description are presented.