I. A. Krinberg
Irkutsk State University, Irkutsk, Russia
Motion and heating of plasma emitted from cathode spots of the vacuum arc discharge has been studied by means of analytical solution of magneto- hydrodynamic equations. As is shown three characteristic modes of current-carrying plasma expansion into the vacuum ambient may be distinguished: a free quasi-spherical expansion with a cooling (the conical jet), a magnetically confined isothermal flow (the parabolic jet), an essentially heated flow along an external magnetic field (the cylindrical jet).
