Expansion of a plasma into vacuum with a bi-Maxwellian electron distribution function

Abstract

A comprehensive theory is developped to describe the expansion of a plasma into a vacuum with a two-temperature electron distribution function. The characteristics of the rarefaction shock which occurs in the plasma when the hot- to the cold-electron temperature ratio is larger than 9.9 are investigated with a semi-infinite plasma. Furthermore by using a finite plasma foil, a possible heating of the cold electrons population is evidenced, for a sufficiently large hot- to the cold-electron density ratio. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2013.