Fundamentals of Plasma Physics

Paul M. Bellan is Professor of Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology.

• Preface; 1. Basic concepts; 2. The Vlasov, two-fluid, and MHD models of plasma dynamics; 3. Motion of a single plasma particle; 4. Elementary plasma waves; 5. Streaming instabilities and the Landau problem; 6. Cold plasma waves in a magnetized plasma; 7. Waves in inhomogeneous plasmas and wave energy relations; 8. Vlasov theory of warm electrostatic waves in a magnetized plasma; 9. MHD equilibria; 10. Stability of static MHD equilibria; 11. Magnetic helicity interpreted and Woltjer–Taylor relaxation; 12. Magnetic reconnection; 13. Fokker–Planck theory of collisions; 14. Wave-particle nonlinearities; 15. Wave-wave nonlinearities; 16. Non-neutral plasmas; 17. Dusty plasmas; Appendix A. Intuitive method for vector calculus identities; Appendix B. Vector calculus in orthogonal curvilinear coordinates; Appendix C. Frequently used physical constants and formulae; Bibliography; References; Index.

Review of the hardback: 'A conscientious and elegantly produced textbook … single-particle orbit theory and linearized waves in unbounded plasma are particularly well done … A lot can be learned from it. Picking up the text and reading it at random is often rewarding.' D. C. Montgomery, Theoretical and Computational Fluid Dynamics