Neutralization of ion beam by electron injection, Part 1: Accumulation of cold electrons

Abstract: Ion beam charge neutralization by electron injection is a complex kinetic process. Recent experiments show that resulting self-potential of the beam after neutralization by plasma could be much lower than the temperature of plasma electrons [Physics of Plasmas 23, 043113 (2016)], indicating that kinetic effects are important and may affect the neutralization of ion beam. We performed a numerical study of the charge neutralization process of an ion beam making use of a two-dimensional electrostatic particle-in-cell code. The results show that the process of charge neutralization by electron injection is comprised of two stages. During the first stage, the self-potential of the beam is higher than the temperature of injected electrons (Te/e). Therefore, the neutralization of the ion beam is almost unaffected by Te, and all injected electrons are captured by the ion beam. At the second stage, with the decline of the beam potential (), hot electrons escape from the ion beam, while cold electrons are slowly accumulated. As a result, can be much lower than Te/e. It is found in the simulations that during the accumulation of cold electrons, scales as . In addition, the results show that the transverse position of electron source has a great impact on ion beam neutralization. Slight shift of electron source leads to large increase of the beam potential because of increase in potential energy of injected electrons.