External charged debris in a flowing plasma : charge fluctuation induced complexity

TL;DR

This study explores how external charged debris affects a flowing plasma, revealing complex phenomena like chaos and damping caused by charge fluctuations, with implications for space debris management.

Contribution

It introduces a combined kinetic and fluid simulation approach to analyze plasma response to fluctuating external debris charges, supported by a theoretical framework.

Findings

Charge fluctuations induce nonlinear Landau damping.

Debris charge type affects plasma response.

Wave damping occurs near ion-acoustic speed.

Abstract

In this work, we investigate the response of a flowing e-i plasma to embedded external charged debris, focusing on the periodic debris charge fluctuations that can trigger complex phenomena such as chaos and nonlinear Landau damping. We employ both kinetic and fluid simulations to analyse the plasma response to the time-dependent debris charge. Our findings indicate that the nature of the nonlinear response can be considerably different for fluctuating positively charged external debris from negatively charged debris. The simulations show that the debris charge fluctuation causes damping of the ion-acoustic wave as the debris velocity nears the ion-acoustic speed through nonlinear Landau damping and wave-wave interactions. We also present a theoretical framework to support the simulation findings. Our findings provide critical insights into debris-plasma interactions, which may be useful in applications involving space debris management.