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Introduction
Introduction to Plasma Physics:
A graduate course
Richard Fitzpatrick
1
A
SSOCIATE
P
ROFESSOR OF
P
HYSICS
The University of Texas at Austin
Introduction
Sources
What is plasma?
A brief history of plasma physics
Basic parameters
The plasma frequency
Debye shielding
The plasma parameter
Collisionality
Magnetized plasmas
Plasma beta
Charged particle motion
Introduction
Motion in uniform fields
Method of averaging
Guiding centre motion
Magnetic drifts
Invariance of the magnetic moment
Poincaré invariants
Adiabatic invariants
Magnetic mirrors
The Van Allen radiation belts
The ring current
The second adiabatic invariant
The third adiabatic invariant
Motion in oscillating fields
Plasma fluid theory
Introduction
Moments of the distribution function
Moments of the collision operator
Moments of the kinetic equation
Fluid equations
Entropy production
Fluid closure
The Braginskii equations
Normalization of the Braginskii equations
The cold-plasma equations
The MHD equations
The drift equations
Closure in collisionless magnetized plasmas
Waves in cold plasmas
Introduction
Plane waves in a homogeneous plasma
The cold-plasma dielectric permittivity
The cold-plasma dispersion relation
Polarization
Cutoff and resonance
Waves in an unmagnetized plasma
Low-frequency wave propagation in a magnetized plasma
Wave propagation parallel to the magnetic field
Wave propagation perpendicular to the magnetic field
Wave propagation through an inhomogeneous plasma
Cutoffs
Resonances
The resonant layer
Collisional damping
Pulse propagation
Ray tracing
Radio wave propagation through the ionosphere
Magnetohydrodynamic theory
Introduction
Magnetic pressure
Flux freezing
MHD waves
The solar wind
The Parker model of the solar wind
The interplanetary magnetic field
Mass and angular momentum loss
MHD dynamo theory
The homopolar generator
Slow dynamos and fast dynamos
The Cowling anti-dynamo theorem
The Ponomarenko dynamo
Magnetic reconnection
Linear tearing mode theory
Nonlinear tearing mode theory
Fast magnetic reconnection
The kinetic theory of waves
Introduction
Landau damping
The physics of Landau damping
The plasma dispersion function
Ion sound waves
Waves in a magnetized plasma
Wave propagation parallel to the magnetic field
Wave propagation perpendicular to the magnetic field
About this document ...
Richard Fitzpatrick 2006-02-16
