Numerical simulation of the plasma of an electron cyclotron resonance ion source

Abstract

We propose a kinetic description of the particles in an electron cyclotron resonance ion source (ECRIS) for highly charged ion production. The electron distribution function (EDF) is solution of a Fokker-Planck equation in velocity space. A new finite-volume scheme for the computation of the EDF is presented. The system is azimuthally symmetric. A two-dimensional, structured grid of quadrangles is used to describe the geometry in spherical polar coordinates (v, µ). The temporal stiffness problems are addressed with a semi-implicit method of time integration. Evaluation of the coefficients of the collision operator requires derivatives ef the Rosenbluth potentials in every time step. The computation is accomplished through parallel implementation. Examples of the application of the algorithm are given and the role of the different design parameters is studied.