Perfecting Braginskii's eletron transport coefficients for high collisionality plasmas

POSTER

Abstract

It is known that Braginskii's transport coefficients for the heat flow and frictional force are in error up to 65\% for some finite values of $x=\Omega \tau$ and have significant error in the large-$x$ limit.~\footnote{E. M. Epperlein and M. G. Haines, Phys. Fluids {\bf 29}, 1029 (1986).} Here $\Omega$ is the electron-cyclotron frequency, and $\tau$ is the electron-ion collision time. In this work, we find fitting formulas which are practically exact (less than 1\% error) for the whole range of $x$ and $Z$, the ion charge, checked up to $Z$=100. The new fitting formulas are based on calculations with 160 moments (Laguerre polynomials)~\footnote{J.-Y. Ji and E. D. Held, Phys. Plasmas {\bf 13}, 102103 (2006); {\bf 15}, 102101 (2008).} for $x<100$ and on the asymptotic form for large $x$-values.

Authors

  • Jeong-Young Ji

    Utah State University

  • E.D. Held

    Utah State University