Theoretical plasma physics

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 is divided into four major parts: (i) collisionless Vlasov plasmas (linear theory of waves and instabilities with and without an applied magnetic field, Vlasov–Poisson and Vlasov–Maxwell systems, Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin–Jeffreys (WKBJ) eikonal theory of wave propagation); (ii) nonlinear Vlasov plasmas and miscellaneous topics (the plasma dispersion function, singular solutions of the Vlasov–Poisson system, pulse-response solutions for initial-value problems, Gardner’s stability theorem, gyroresonant effects, nonlinear waves, particle trapping in waves, quasilinear theory, nonlinear three-wave interactions); (iii) 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); (iv) non-uniform plasmas (adiabatic invariance, guiding-centre drifts, hydromagnetic theory, introduction to drift-wave stability theory).