Drifts, boundary conditions and plasma convection on open magnetic field lines

In a number of plasmas of practical interest, including the scrape-off layer of a tokamak with a divertor or toroidal limiter, some gas discharge devices, and in the vicinity of spacecraft, magnetic field lines intersect bounding surfaces at shallow angles. Under these circumstances a number of interesting and important effects arise. Drifts can compete with parallel flows in establishing the boundary conditions for plasma mass-flow and current (sheath current-voltage characteristics). We derive the mass-flow constraints including both poloidal and radial drifts, review the current boundary conditions, and survey the consequences, including along-field density and heat-flux asymmetries, convection created by a wavy surface, generation of electric fields and surface currents associated with shadows from surface structures, and modification of instability growth