Regular Article

Plasma diagnostic opportunities from a positron beam^⋆

Research School of Physics, ANU, Canberra, ACT, Australia

^a e-mail: daniel.cocks@anu.edu.au

Received: 30 September 2019
Received in final form: 27 November 2019
Published online: 9 January 2020

Abstract

We investigate the suitability of using a positron beam to obtain information about low-temperature plasmas. We have simulated the propagation of positrons using a stochastic particle-track Monte Carlo simulation in an argon plasma. Our study focuses on the bulk of the plasma, including all the interactions of a positron with the neutral and charged particles of varying electron temperature and ionisation fraction. We interpret our results in the context of experimentally observable quantities and identify several potential signatures of the plasma parameters. Our results indicate that, even in a more complex experimental setup, the ionisation fraction and electron temperature should be able to be determined.