Current-Produced Magnetic Field Effects on Current Collection

Current collection by an infinitely long, conducting cylinder in a magnetized plasma, taking into account the magnetic field of the collected current, is discussed. A region of closed magnetic surfaces disconnects the cylinder from infinity. Due to this, the collected current depends on the ratio between this region and the plasma sheath region and, under some conditions, current reduction arises. The current collection along a realistic "bare wire" space tether is considered. A number of factors are taken into account, including the resistance of the wire and shielding resulting from the current-induced magnetic field produced by current flow in the tether. The plasma density, tether length and radius, the geomagnetic field strength and angle to the orbital velocity vector were all used as parameters in the study. It is shown that magnetic shielding for certain tether system configurations, when combined with particular values of the governing parameters, significantly reduces the collected current. Specifically, it is shown that an electrodynamic tether in the "thruster" mode suffers greater reduction from magnetic shielding than a tether with the same characteristics deployed in the "generator" mode. We find that, for both modes, current-induced magnetic shielding becomes more significant as plasma density and wire radius increase. The same is true for the dependence on the angle of the geomagnetic field to the orbital velocity vector and the motion-induced electric field for the generator mode For the thruster mode, the effect is larger for smaller angles. In both operating modes, the shielding is more important for smaller angles between the tether and magnetic field. In addition to the above dependencies, the effect for the thruster mode essentially depends on the tether length. In general, any parametric change that increases tether current, relative to the strength of the electric field between the tether and the ambient plasma, will increase the shielding effect (thereby reducing overall tether current compared to the case without considering these effects). The effect of the induced magnetic shielding can be significant in some cases.