The simulation of volume produced negative ions from a plasma is by far more complicated than the extraction of positive ions, while in experiments the only difficulty seemes to be connected with the power of the electrons, which are extracted at the same time. The reason for this complication in simple minded simulations is the infinite space charge, which builds up in the turning point of the positive ions in the extraction aperture for the negative ions. Smearing out the energy of the positive ions seems to help, however, this is mostly not justified by experiments, showing a low ion energy, especially in the region between the magnetic filter and the extraction hole. This difficulty may be overcome by using experience from virtual cathode formation in magnetically focused, decelerated electron beams. The decelerated electrons behave similarly to the reflected positive ions and are forming a virtual cathode in the reflection zone. From the analysis of the electron deceleration experiment, a simple power law is deduced to describe the decreasing electron current by the local potential. In turn, this power law may also be applied to the positive ion current, resulting in simulations without space charge singularity, even in the case of monoenergetic ions. As a first step towards the numerical simulation of negative ion extraction, a linear model has been made, using this power law. The transition from a Boltzmann distribution for the plasma electrons to a truncated one for the extracted beam electrons is considered as well, parallel to Langmuir’s treatment of a thermal diode for electrons. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.