Theoretical Plasma Physics

TL;DR

This comprehensive set of lecture notes covers fundamental and advanced topics in plasma physics, including collisionless and collisional plasmas, nonlinear phenomena, and nonuniform plasma behavior, based on university course lectures.

Contribution

It provides a detailed, lecture-based reconstruction of plasma physics theory, covering both linear and nonlinear plasma phenomena, with historical and pedagogical context.

Findings

Extensive coverage of Vlasov plasma theory and wave instabilities.

In-depth discussion of nonlinear plasma dynamics and particle interactions.

Introduction to plasma stability and drift-wave theory.

Abstract

These lecture notes were presented by Allan N. Kaufman in his graduate plasma theory course and a follow-on special topics course (Physics 242A, B, C and Physics 250 at the University of California Berkeley). The notes follow the order of the lectures. The equations and derivations are as Kaufman presented, but the text is a reconstruction of Kaufman's discussion and commentary. The notes were transcribed by Bruce I. Cohen in 1971 and 1972, and word-processed, edited, and illustrations added by Cohen in 2017 and 2018. The series of lectures are divided into four major parts: (1) collisionless Vlasov plasmas (linear theory of waves and instabilities with and without an applied magnetic field, Vlasov-Poisson and Vlasov-Maxwell systems, WKBJ eikonal theory of wave propagation); (2) nonlinear Vlasov plasmas and miscellaneous topics (the plasma dispersion function, singular solutions of the Vlasov-Poisson system, pulse-response solutions for initial-value problems, Gardiner's stability theorem, gyroresonant effects, nonlinear waves, particle trapping in waves, quasi-linear theory, nonlinear three-wave interactions); (3) plasma collisional and discreteness phenomena (test-particle theory of dynamic friction and wave emission, classical resistivity, extension of test-particle theory to many-particle phenomena and the derivation of the Boltzmann and Lenard-Balescu equations, the Fokker-Planck collision operator, a general scattering theory, nonlinear Landau damping, radiation transport, and Dupree's theory of clumps); (4) nonuniform plasmas (adiabatic invariance, guiding center drifts, hydromagnetic theory, introduction to drift-wave stability theory).