Collisional Transport in Magnetized Plasmas

A graduate level text treating transport theory, an essential element of theoretical plasma physics.

Per Helander (Author), Dieter J. Sigmar (Author)

9780521020985, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 October 2005

312 pages, 30 b/w illus.
24.5 x 16.8 x 1.6 cm, 0.503 kg

'It seems that the authors know how to build a bridge between a manual and a research book. This monograph will be useful to advanced graduate students and scientists that are working in plasma physics.' Zentralblatt MATH

Collisional transport theory is of central importance to modern plasma physics. This book provides a self-contained treatment of the subject, starting from elementary concepts and developing the theory through to the research frontier. Basic tools of kinetic plasma theory, such as the drift kinetic equation and the Coulomb collision operator, are derived, and are then used to calculate classical and neoclassical transport occurring in high-temperature plasmas. Important phenomena such as neo-classical diffusion, bootstrap current, and plasma rotation are carefully explained. Students, theoreticians and experimentalists in both fusion and space plasma physics will benefit from this book, which emerged from a graduate student level course taught at MIT.

1. Introduction
2. Kinetic and fluid descriptions of a plasma
3. The collision operator
4. Plasma fluid equations
5. Transport of a cylindrical plasma
6. Particle motion
7. Toroidal plasma
8. Transport in toroidal plasmas
9. Transport in the Pfirsch–Schlüter regime
10. Transport in the plateau regime
11. Transport in the banana regime
12. The moment approach to neoclassical theory
13. Advanced topics
14. Experimental evidence for neoclassical transport.

Subject Areas: Plasma physics [PHFP]