Particle simulation of a magnetized plasma contacting the wall

One-dimensional particle simulations are performed to study the influence of a strong magnetic field on the plasma boundary layer in front of a completely absorbing wall. The magnetic field lines are parallel to the wall, and the ion transport is provided by charge exchange collisions with cold neutrals. The Debye length is small compared with the ion gyroradius and the electrons are Boltzmann distributed. A modified Particle-in-Cell Monte-Carlo-Collision (PIC-MCC) code is developed to avoid the problem of different time scales of electrons and ions. The self-consistent steady-state simulation is performed for a system with one spatial coordinate and two velocity components (1d, 2v). The results are compared with corresponding results of a self-consistent stationary solution of the ion Boltzmann equation. Although the potential and density profiles are essentially confirmed, the ion velocity distribution functions disagree with analytic solutions in certain singular regions unless certain pertubations ih the electric field are suppressed. It is shown that this is due to a microscopic instability of the stationary solution. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.