Basic mechanisms controlling the sweeping efficiency of propagating current sheets

The basic mechanisms controlling the sweeping efficiency of propagating current sheets are investigated through experiments and analytical modelling. The sweeping efficiency of a current sheet in a parallel plate gas-fed pulsed plasma accelerator is defined as the ratio of the current sheet mass to the total available propellant mass. Permeability of neutrals through the sheet, and leakage of mass out of the sheet and into a cathode wake, decrease the sweeping efficiency. The sweeping efficiency of current sheets in argon, neon, helium and hydrogen propellants at different initial pressures was determined through measurements of sheet velocity with high speed photography and of sheet mass with laser interferometry. The mechanism that controls the sweeping efficiency of propagating current sheets was found to be an interplay of two processes: the flux of mass entering the sheet and the leakage of mass at the cathode, with the former dependent on the degree of permeability and the latter dependent on the level of ion current as determined by the ion Hall parameter.