The zero-electron-mass limit in the hydrodynamic model for plasmas Original Research Article

The limit of the vanishing ratio of the electron mass to the ion mass in the isentropic transient Euler–Poisson equations with periodic boundary conditions is proved. The equations consist of the balance laws for the electron density and current density for a given ion density, coupled to the Poisson equation for the electrostatic potential. The limit is related to the low-Mach-number limit of Klainerman and Majda. In particular, the limit velocity satisfies the incompressible Euler equations with damping. The difference to the zero-Mach-number limit comes from the electrostatic potential which needs to be controlled. This is done by a reformulation of the equations in terms of the enthalpy, higher-order energy estimates and a careful use of the Poisson equation.