Electron transport in a Hall thruster from an axial-azimuthal PIC code including interaction with radial walls.*

Classical collisions alone cannot explain the measured electron cross-field transport in Hall thrusters. Correlated oscillations in the electron density and azimuthal electric field are considered the main drivers of this anomalous electron transport.

Addressing the development and nonlinear saturation of the involved plasma instabilities requires a self-consistent formulation of the weakly-collisional magnetized discharge. Unfortunately, 3D kinetic models have an extremely high computational cost due to the disparate dynamics of plasma species and the small Debye length. Thus a common approach is using axial-azimuthal (2D) simulations, but these often neglect or oversimplify the strong plasma interaction with radial walls. The present work incorporates semi-consistently this radial interaction in an axial-azimuthal PIC code and analyzes parametrically how it affects the kinetic instabilities and the resulting cross-field electron transport.