2. Narrowing the results
The first search returned everything that mentions the words anywhere. Each option below removes one kind of noise.
One source, a range of years
$ mosaic search "hall thruster particle-in-cell" --source arxiv --year 2020-2025
# Title Authors Year DOI Source OA PDF
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
1 Reduced-order particle-in-cell Maryam Reza 2023 10.1088/1361-6595/ac arXiv yes ✓
simulations of a high-power et al. dea3
magnetically shielde…
2 Effects of the neutral dynamics Farbod Faraji 2023 10.1063/5.0143292 arXiv yes ✓
model on the particle-in-cell et al.
simulations of a …
3 Dimensionality reduction of Maryam Reza 2022 10.48550/arXiv.2206. arXiv yes ✓
Poisson's equation with application et al. 13892
to particle-in-…
4 Enhancing one-dimensional Farbod Faraji 2022 10.1063/5.0090853 arXiv yes ✓
particle-in-cell simulations to et al.
self-consistently res…
5 Generalized reduced-order Maryam Reza 2022 10.48550/arXiv.2208. arXiv yes ✓
particle-in-cell scheme for Hall et al. 13106
thruster modeling: c…
6 Giant topological and planar Hall D. A. Mayoh 2022 10.1103/PhysRevResea arXiv yes ✓
effect in Cr$_{1/3}$NbS$_{2}$ et al. rch.4.013134
7 Analysis and Particle-in-Cell Ishaan Mishra 2022 10.48550/arXiv.2211. arXiv yes ✓
Simulation of Gridded ICRH Plasma 09364
Thruster
8 Electrospray Thruster Plume Ethan Kahn 2025 10.48550/arXiv.2510. arXiv yes ✓
Impingement on CubeSat Solar Arrays: 05084
A Particle-Tra…
8 result(s)--source arxiv(or-s arxiv) queries one source. The shorthands are listed on Sources:ssSemantic Scholar,oaOpenAlex,epmcEurope PMC,crossref,hal,pubmedand so on.--year 2020-2025keeps an inclusive range;--year 2023one year;--year 2019,2021,2023a list. mosaic sends the range to the sources that support it, then checks it on every result.
Not every row is about Hall thrusters: one is about the Hall effect in a crystal, two about other thrusters. The words matched their abstracts.
Only the title
$ mosaic search "hall thruster" --field title --source oa --max 8 --sort citations
# Title Authors Year DOI Source OA PDF Cited
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
1 Plasma oscillations in Hall Edgar 2001 10.1063/1.1354644 OpenAlex no – 537
thrusters Choueiri
2 Tutorial: Physics and modeling Jean-Pierre 2017 10.1063/1.4972269 OpenAlex no – 502
of Hall thrusters Bœuf
3 Parametric investigations of a Yevgeny 2001 10.1063/1.1355318 OpenAlex no – 209
nonconventional Hall thruster Raitses &
N. J. Fisch
4 Electron-wall interaction in Yevgeny 2005 10.1063/1.1891747 OpenAlex yes ✓ 150
Hall thrusters Raitses et
al.
5 Kinetic effects in a Hall Igor 2007 10.1063/1.2709865 OpenAlex no – 134
thruster discharge Kaganovich
et al.
6 Review of Hall Thruster Plume Iain D. 2001 10.2514/2.3695 OpenAlex no – 125
Modeling Boyd
7 Rayleigh instability in Hall Andrei A. 2004 10.1063/1.1647565 OpenAlex no – 77
thrusters Litvak & N.
J. Fisch
8 Propellant Utilization in Hall Yevgeny 1998 10.2514/2.5274 OpenAlex no – 73
Thrusters Raitses et
al.
8 result(s)--field title turns the query into a title search, in each source's syntax (ti: on arXiv, title.search on OpenAlex); --field abstract does the same for abstracts. --sort citations puts the most-cited papers first and adds the Cited column, from the counts OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar and Scopus report. --sort year puts the newest first; --sort relevance is the subject of chapter 8.
An author
$ mosaic search "hall thruster" --author Boeuf --source oa --max 25
# Title Authors Year DOI Source OA PDF Cited
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
1 Tutorial: Physics and modeling Jean-Pierre 2017 10.1063/1.4972269 OpenAlex no – 502
of Hall thrusters Bœuf
1 result(s)--author matches part of any author's name, ignoring case and accents: Boeuf finds Jean-Pierre Bœuf. Repeat it for several authors (-a Boeuf -a Garrigues); a paper passes if any of them signed it. --journal matches part of the journal name the same way.
Open access, with a PDF
$ mosaic search "hall thruster anomalous transport" --oa-only --pdf-only --max 3
# Title Authors Year DOI Source OA PDF Cited
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
1 Plasma Diagnostic and Jose 2004 10.48550/arXiv.ph arXiv yes ✓ –
Performance of a Permanent Leonardo ysics/0410170
Magnet Hall Thruster Ferreira et
al.
2 Electric field induced Berry Srimayi 2025 10.48550/arXiv.25 arXiv yes ✓ –
curvature dipole and non-linear Korrapati 10.20237
anomalous Hall eff… et al.
3 Near-Wall Pathways of Anomalous Zhe Liu et 2026 10.1103/p8v6-66mq arXiv yes ✓ –
Electron Transport in Hall al.
Thrusters Revealed b…
4 Numerical Study of Electron Zahra Asadi 2019 10.3389/fphy.2019 DOAJ yes ✓ –
Cyclotron Drift Instability: et al. .00140
Application to Hall Th…
5 Data-driven analysis of Bayón-Buján 2025 10.1007/s44205-02 Europe PMC yes ✓ –
anomalous transport and B et al. 5-00158-6
three-wave-coupling effects in
…
6 Two-Dimensional (z-theta) Cheryl Lam 2009 – OpenAlex no ✓ 0
Simulations of Hall Thruster et al.
Anomalous Transport
7 3D particle-in-cell study of W. 2023 10.1063/5.0133963 HAL yes ✓ –
the electron drift instability Villafana
in a Hall Thruster … et al.
8 Modèles cinétiques et Jordan 2013 – HAL yes ✓ –
caractérisation expérimentale Cavalier
des fluctuations électrosta…
9 Modélisation bidimensionnelle Vivien 2017 10.70675/49b7974e HAL yes ✓ –
de la décharge plasma dans un Croes zcf6dz42b1z9817z0
propulseur de Hall df2db1d5902
10 Technology Demonstration Safran 2026 10.5281/zenodo.23 Zenodo yes ✓ –
testing of the PPS-20k Thruster Spacecraft 102630
Propulsion
et al.
11 Application of Force Measuring Spethmann, 2017 10.5281/zenodo.17 Zenodo yes ✓ –
Probes for the Investigation of Alexander 385281
Sputtering and a… et al.
12 Band structure, magneto-Seebeck Daou, Ramzy 2025 10.5281/zenodo.17 Zenodo yes ✓ –
and magnetoresistance at the et al. 423713
para-to ferri-magn…
13 Interstellar Mapping And McComas DJ 2025 10.1007/s11214-02 PubMed yes ✓ –
Acceleration Probe: The NASA et al. 5-01224-z Central
IMAP Mission.
14 Characterization of a 10 W Whittaker C 2025 10.1007/s44205-02 PubMed yes ✓ –
class electrospray array et al. 5-00114-4 Central
thruster.
14 result(s)--oa-only keeps the papers marked open access or with a known PDF link; --pdf-only keeps those with a PDF link. Chapter 4 downloads these without further effort.
Who answered what
$ mosaic search "hall thruster anomalous transport" --max 5 --stats
Search stats
Source Results
────────────────────────────────
arXiv 5
BASE 0
DOAJ 1
Cochrane 0
Europe PMC 5
HAL 5
OpenAlex 5
bioRxiv/medRxiv 0
Crossref 5
PubMed 3
Zenodo 5
PubMed Central 5
Total raw 39
Merged 4
Unique 35
⋮ (111 lines not shown)
35 result(s)--stats prints how many results each source returned, how many duplicates were merged, and how many unique papers remain. A source that never returns anything for your field is a candidate for mosaic config --disable-source NAME.
The raw query
If you know a source's query language, --raw-query sends your text as it is and skips the field and author translation. Year filters still apply to the results:
mosaic search "" --source arxiv --raw-query 'ti:"hall thruster" AND abs:kinetic'What you learned
--source, --year, --field, --author, --journal, --oa-only, --pdf-only, --sort, --stats and --raw-query. Filters combine: a paper must pass all of them. Reference: search.
Next: 3. The local cache.