Anomalous acceleration of ions in a plasma accelerator with an anodic layer

In a plasma accelerator with an anodic layer（PAAL）, we discovered experimentally the effect of‘super-acceleration＇ of the bulk of the ions to energies W exceeding the energy equivalent to the discharge voltage Vd. The E？×？B discharge was ignited in an environment of atomic argon and helium and molecular nitrogen. Singly charged argon ions were accelerated most effectively in the case of the largest discharge currents and pressure P of the working gas. Helium ions with W？〉？eV_d（e being the electron charge） were only recorded at maximum pressures. Molecular nitrogen was not accelerated to energies W？〉？e Vd. Anomalous acceleration is realized in the range of radial magnetic fields on the anode 2.8？×？10^（–2）≤B_（rA）≤4？×？10^（–2） T. It was also found analytically that the cathode of the accelerator can receive anomalously accelerated ions. In this case, the value of the potential in the anodic layer becomes higher than the anode potential, and the anode current exceeds some critical value. Numerical modeling in terms of the developed theory showed qualitative agreement between modeling data and measurements.

Equidistance target-following controller for underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles

Purpose–Autonomous Underwater Vehicles(AUVs)play a crucial role in marine biology research and oceanic natural resources exploration.Since most AUVs are underactuated they require sophisticated trajectory planning and tracking algorithms.The purpose of this paper is to develop a new method that allows an underactuated AUV to track a moving object while constraining the approach to a direction tangent to the path of the target.Furthermore,the distance at which the AUV follows the target is constrained,reducing the probability of detection and unwanted behavior change of the target.Design/methodology/approach–First,a kinematic controller that generates a trajectory tangent to the path of the moving target is designed such that the AUV maintains a prescribed distance and approaches the target from behind.Using a Lyapunov based method the stability of the kinematic controller is proven.Second,a dynamic sliding mode controller is employed to drive the vehicle on the trajectory computed in the first step.Findings–The kinematic and dynamic controllers are shown to be stable and robust against parameter uncertainty in the dynamic model of the vehicle.Results of numerical simulations for equidistant tracking of a target on both smooth and discontinuous derivatives trajectories for a variety of relative initial positions and orientations are shown.Originality/value–The contribution of this research is development of a new method for path planning and tracking of moving targets for underactuated AUVs in the horizontal plane.The method allows control of both the direction of approach and the distance from a moving object.

A Gyrokinetic simulation model for low frequency electromagnetic fluctuations in magnetized plasmas

We present a new model for simulating the electromagnetic fluctuations with frequencies much lower than the ion cyclotron frequency in plasmas confined in general magnetic configurations.This novel model(termed as GK-E&B)employs nonlinear gyrokinetic equations formulated in terms of electromagnetic fields along with momentum balance equations for solving fields.It,thus,not only includes kinetic effects,such as wave-particle interaction and microscopic(ion Larmor radius scale)physics;but also is computationally more efficient than the conventional formulation described in terms of potentials.As a benchmark,we perform linear as well as nonlinear simulations of the kinetic Alfvén wave;demonstrating physics in agreement with the analytical theories.