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Ion acceleration up to energy keV in a low-inductive vacuum discharge was investigated experimentally in detail. It was shown that the acceleration started at a distance about - 3 mm from the cathode and continued all the way to the anode. Negative potential `bursts' moving together with the plasma jet front were discovered. They apparently trapped ions and accelerated them to the observed high energies. A mechanism for the generation of the `bursts' and the plasma acceleration due to the jet constriction is proposed.
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Gorbunov et al. (1997) studied this question.
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