The morphological evolution and internal convection of ExB-drifting plasma clouds: Theory, dielectric-in-cell simulations, and N-body dielectric simulations

The evolution of ExB-drifting plasma clouds is investigated with the aid of a computational technique denoted here as open-quotes dielectric-in-cell.close quotes Many of the familiar phenomena associated with clouds of collisionless plasma are seen and explained and less-well-known phenomena associated with convection patterns, with the stripping of cloud material, and with the evolution of plasma clouds composed of differing ion species are investigated. The effects of spatially uniform diffusion are studied with the dielectric-in-cell technique and with another computational technique denoted as open-quotes N-body dielectric;close quotes the suppression of convection, the suppression of structure growth, the increase in material stripping, and the evolution of cloud anisotropy are examined. copyright 1998 American Institute of Physics