The composition of a non-ideal plasma and the thermodynamic functions and conductivity of the system are calculated using the minimum Gibbs free energy method. Interactions of charged particles are described by a pseudopotential model that takes into account collective phenomena (high-order correlation effects) in the plasma.

The Monte Carlo method is used to simulate ion transport in an Ar plasma electrode sheath with a non-uniform dust. Charge exchange and elastic collisions between ions and neutral atoms and also the collection and Coulomb scattering of ions on the dust particles are examined during the motion of ions in the sheath. In order to study the effect of the non-uniform dust density and size on ion transport, we choose an exponent dust density distribution with a uniform dust size and a normal dust radius distribution with a uniform density and compare the simulation results with those for a uniform dust. It is found that both a non-uniform and a uniform dust density affect the ion density arriving at the electrode significantly and to the same degree. At the same time, it is also found that a non-uniform and uniform dust size influence the ion density arriving at the electrode greatly, but with a slight difference. Therefore, although the dust content is very low in most processing plasmas, its influence becomes evident whether its content is uniform or non-uniform in content and size. So, we can come to the conclusion that the key factors affecting the influence of dust particles on plasma behaviour are the linear density and the average radius of dust particles rather than their distribution.

Distribution of antenna-driven electromagnetic wave fields within the local Alfvén resonance is studied under resonant conditions such that the axial period of the fundamental harmonic of the magnetohydrodynamic oscillations in the axial direction is twice as large as the pitch length, and the poloidal number of the fundamental harmonic is twice as small as the polarity of the helical coils. It is shown that taking account of the helical inhomogeneity of the steady magnetic field can remove the infinite discontinuity of the wave fields that takes place in a straight magnetic field rather than with electron inertia or a finite ion Larmor radius.

Extra and very low-frequency (ELF/VLF) wave generation by modulated polar electrojet currents is studied numerically. Through Ohmic heating by the amplitude-modulated high-frequency heating wave, the conductivity and thus the current of the electrojet are modulated accordingly to set up the ionospheric antenna current. Stimulated thermal instability, which can further enhance the electrojet current modulation, is studied. It is first analysed analytically to determine the threshold heating power for its excitation. The nonlinear evolutions of the generated ELF/VLF waves enhanced by the instability are then studied numerically. Their spectra are also evaluated. The field intensity of the emission at the fundamental modulation frequency is found to increase with the modulation frequency in agreement with the Tromso observations. The efficiency enhancement by the stimulated thermal instability is hampered by inelastic collisions of electrons with neutral particles (mainly due to vibration excitation of N2), which cause this instability to saturate at low levels. However, the electron inelastic collision loss rate drops rapidly to a low value in the energy regime from 3.5 to 6 eV. As the heating power exceeds a threshold level, significant electron heating enhanced by the instability is shown, which indeed causes a steep drop in the electron inelastic collision loss rate. Consequently, this instability saturates at a much higher level, resulting to a near step increase (of about 10–13 dB depending on the modulation wave form) in the spectral intensity of ELF radiation. The dependence of the threshold power of the HF heating wave on the modulation frequency is determined.

The higher-order growth rate of instability for obliquely propagating kinetic Alfvén and ion-acoustic solitons in a magnetized non-thermal plasma have been obtained by the multiple-scale perturbation expansion method developed by Allen and Rowlands (1993). The growth rate of instability is obtained correct to order k2, where k is the wave number of a long-wavelength plane-wave perturbation. The corresponding lowest-order stability analysis has been considered recently by Bandyopadhyay and Das (2000b). It has been found that the kinetic Alfvén solitary waves are stable at the order of k but are unstable at the order of k2. It has also been found that the growth rate of instability at the order of k for ion-acoustic solitary waves is free from the parameters of the non-thermal plasma but at the order of k2 depends on the parameters of the non-thermal plasma.

The dynamics of a Hall thruster is investigated numerically in the presence of a plasma–wall interaction. The plasma–wall interaction is a function of the wall potential, which in turn is determined by the secondary electron emission and sputtering yield. In the present work, the effect of secondary electron emission and sputter yield have been considered simultaneously. Owing to disparate temporal scales, ions and neutrals have been described by a set of time-dependent equations while electrons are considered in a steady state. Based on the experimental observations, a third-order polynomial in electron temperature is used to calculate the ionization rate. The changes in the plasma density, potential and azimuthal electron velocity due to the sputter yield are significant in the acceleration region. The change in ion and electron velocity and temperature is small. The neutral velocity, which decreases initially, starts increasing towards the exit consistent with the computed neutral density profile. The results are qualitatively compared with the experiments.