Diagnosing on plasma plume from xenon Hall thruster with collisional-radiative model

摘要

The collisional-radiative model for xenon is used to calculate the electron density and temperature, and the atom population distribution in the plasma plume from a xenon Hall thruster. In the calculation, 173 levels of atom population are considered; only the processes of electron induced excitation and deexcitation, and spontaneous decay are simulated. The plasma plume is assumed to be optically thin. Consequently, the reasonable parameters of plasma plume along the outside center line of the thruster channel are obtained by making the calculated emission spectrum corresponding to measured ones and based on the atomic data available on site and by codes.