Plasma perturbations in the acceleration channel of a Hall thruster are found to be unstable in the presence of collisions. Both electrostatic lower-hybrid waves and electromagnetic Alfvén waves transverse to the applied electric and magnetic field are found to be unstable due to collisions in the E×B electron flow. These results are obtained assuming a two-fluid hydrodynamic model in slab geometry. The characterisitic frequencies of these modes are consistent with experimental observations in Hall current plasma thrusters.
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Litvak et al. (2001) studied this question.
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