NE 529 Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy II

3 Credit Hours

This course expands on the treatment of plasmas as a system of coupled fluids and introduces the foundations of plasma kinetic theory. Derivation of the plasma kinetic equation and the Vlasov equation serve as the starting point to introduce the kinetic study of plasma systems. From this introduction of the governing equations for full kinetic treatment, methods for analyzing plasma response to electromagnetic and electrostatic perturbations using the linearized Vlasov model for uncorrelated plasmas are introduced. Kinetic stability of Vlasov plasmas is introduced and the Nyquist method is used to determine conditions for kinetic stability. The concept of correlated plasmas is then introduced through the introduction of reduced distribution functions and the BBGKY heirarchy. Finally, simple correlated systems and the Liouville model for two-system correlation is covered to look at the impact of particle correlation due to collisions and coulomb interaction.

Updated 10/21/2022