Abstract

The Plasma State discusses the fundamental principles that describe plasma occurrence. The book reviews the plasma state, collisions, collisional processes, diffusion, mobility, Rutherford scattering, and the collision cross-section. The motion of isolated charged particles occurs in electrical, magnetic, or gravitational fields. During low plasma density and low background gas pressure, the collision frequency is also low. It is during this time that the single particle approach can be studied using a fundamental equation of motion. The text also discusses the problems encountered in the presence of extremely large numbers of particles, moving and interacting with one another. Other topics related to the statistics of collisions and fluid behavior are the collisionless Boltzmann equation, inclusion of collisional processes in statistical descriptions, and the "integrate out" of velocity dependence of the collisionless Boltzmann equation which gives a fluid model of a plasma. The book also describes the different acceleration processes, such as Coulomb collisions, electron or ion-neutral collisions, collective or wave phenomena, that all produce radiation. The text is suitable for students of physics, engineering, atomic physics.