Month: September 2015

Stability of a collisionless plasma

ttn12 Kinetic theory, Plasma Physics ,

What is a plasma? A plasma is an ionized gas that consists of charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons. To describe the dynamics of a plasma, let {f^\pm(t,x,v)} be the (nonnegative) density distribution of ions and electrons, respectively, at time {t\ge 0}, position {x\in \Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^3}, and particle velocity (or momentum) {v\in \mathbb{R}^3}. The dynamics of a plasma is commonly modeled by the Vlasov equations

\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt} f^\pm (t,X(t), V(t)) = 0 \ \ \ \ \ (1)

Continue reading →