Numerical Analysis of Potential Structure around Electric Solar Wind Sail Tethers

Abstract

We perform the first three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of the electric solar wind sail, which is a recently proposed new propulsion system. We investigate the potential structure around the tethers of the electric solar wind sail. As a result, the potential distribution is greatly lower than the potential expression proposed by the previous studies. We proposed the new method to estimate the potential around the tether numerically without performing the time-consuming PIC calculation. The proposed numerical solution has a very good agreement with PIC results under two difference plasma environments, and its agreement shows the validity of the method. The proposed method is useful to estimate the thrust of E-sail when a precise thrust operation is required.