Theory for the anomalous electron transport in Hall effect thrusters. II. Kinetic model

In Paper I [T. Lafleur et al., Phys. Plasmas 23, 053502 (2016)], we demonstrated (using particle-in-cell simulations) the definite correlation between an anomalously high cross-field electron transport in Hall effect thrusters (HETs), and the presence of azimuthal electrostatic instabilities leading to enhanced electron scattering. Here, we present a kinetic theory that predicts the enhanced scattering rate and provides an electron cross-field mobility that is in good agreement with experiment. The large azimuthal electron drift velocity in HETs drives a strong instability that quickly saturates due to a combination of ion-wave trapping and wave-convection, leading to an enhanced mobility many orders of magnitude larger than that expected from classical diffusion theory. In addition to the magnetic field strength, B0, this enhanced mobility is a strong function of the plasma properties (such as the plasma density) and therefore does not, in general, follow simple 1/B02 or 1/B0 scaling laws.