Electric Probes in Stationary and Flowing Plasmas: Part 1. Collisionless and Transitional Probes

Abstract

The operation and theory for collisionless and transitional electric probes are reviewed. The following topics are discussed: (1) orbital motion limit, (2) cold ion approximation, (3) exact theories for current collection by spherical and cylindrical probes in the collisionless limit, (4) collisional effects on probe response, and (5) the effect of flow on aligned cylindrical probes under collisionless conditions. (MOW)