Analysis of scattering diagnostic information from magnetized thruster plasmas

The adaptation of well-established fusion diagnostics (coherent and incoherent Thomson scattering, in particular) has provided key insights into low-temperature magnetized devices such as plasma thrusters. Such diagnostics have been used to provide evidence of instabilities believed to be relevant to anomalous transport, such as the electron cyclotron drift instability and ion-ion two-stream instability, and important spatially-resolved information on the electron properties and drifts. In this work, we study the spectral information from such diagnostics using simulated and experimental data for magnetized thrusters. Such approaches have the potential to provide guidance for the optimization of propulsion devices and deeper physical insights into their operation which are currently lacking.