Quasi-neutral limit for the Euler-Poisson system in the presence of plasma sheaths with spherical symmetry

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to mathematically investigate the formation of a plasma sheath near the surface of a ball-shaped material immersed in a bulk plasma, and to obtain qualitative information of such a plasma sheath layer. Specifically, we study existence and the quasi-neutral limit behavior of the stationary spherical symmetric solutions for the Euler-Poisson equations in a three-dimensional annular domain. We first propose a suitable condition on the velocity at the sheath edge, referred as to Bohm criterion for the annulus, and under this condition together with the constant Dirichlet boundary conditions for the potential, we show that there exists a unique stationary spherical symmetric solution. Moreover, we study the quasi-neutral limit behavior by establishing (Formula presented.) estimate of the difference of the solutions to the Euler-Poisson equations and its quasi-neutral limiting equations, incorporated with the correctors for the boundary layers. The quasi-neutral limit analysis employing the correctors and their pointwise estimates enables us to obtain detailed asymptotic behaviors including the convergence rates in (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.) norms as well as the thickness of the boundary layers as a consequence of the pointwise estimates.