Two-Temperature and Thermal Plasma Kinetic Theories

Area of Science:

• Plasma Physics
• Kinetic Theory
• Multicomponent Plasmas

Background:

• Two distinct kinetic theories for multicomponent magnetized reactive plasmas are summarized: one with two temperatures (electrons and heavy species) and one with a single temperature.
• The two-temperature theory considers a Knudsen number proportional to the mass ratio's square root and includes polyatomic species.
• The one-temperature theory addresses the complex tensorial structure of transport fluxes and symmetry properties of transport coefficients for mass ratios of order unity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish novel connections between two-temperature and one-temperature kinetic theories for multicomponent magnetized reactive plasmas.
• To demonstrate how the flux structure and second-order corrector terms of the two-temperature theory can be derived from the one-temperature theory.
• To explore efficient numerical solutions for transport linear systems in ionized mixtures.

Main Methods:

• Summarizing existing two-temperature and one-temperature kinetic theories for multicomponent magnetized reactive plasmas.
• Establishing links by applying two-temperature scaling to the transport linear system derived from the one-temperature theory.
• Expanding solutions of transport linear systems in terms of the Knudsen number.
• Utilizing fast and convergent iterative algorithms for solving transport linear systems.

Main Results:

• New links between the two plasma kinetic theories were successfully established.
• The flux structure of the two-temperature theory was recovered from the one-temperature theory, including second-order corrector terms.
• The study addressed the application of iterative algorithms for solving transport linear systems, with improvements for ionized mixtures.

Conclusions:

• The findings demonstrate a theoretical bridge between one-temperature and two-temperature kinetic descriptions of plasmas.
• The research provides a method to derive detailed plasma transport properties from simpler models.
• The work contributes to the development of efficient computational methods for analyzing complex plasma systems.