propelling spacecraft tagged posts

Physical picture of the electron gas expanding in the magnetic wall, where Q = 0 for the adiabatic expansion, resulting in a change of the internal energy of the electron gas is equal to the work done on their surroundings. The magnetic field can behave as a flexible wall with no heat transfer, i.e., the perfectly adiabatic wall. Credit: Kazunori Takahashi

Extending thermodynamics to out of equilibrium electron gas in a magnetic nozzle. Thermodynamics provides insight into the internal energy of a system and the energy interaction with its surroundings. This relies on the local thermal equilibrium of a system. A challenging topic of research has been the application of classical thermodynamics to out of equilibrium systems, e.g...