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Designed to teach plasma physics and astrophysics 'from the ground up', this textbook proceeds from the simplest examples through a careful derivation of results and encourages the reader to think for themselves.
This book is an introduction to contemporary plasma physics that discusses the most relevant recent advances in the field and covers a careful choice of applications to various branches of astrophysics and space science. The purpose of the book is to allow the student to master the basic concepts of plasma physics and to bring him or her up to date in a number of relevant areas of current research. Topics covered include orbit theory, kinetic theory, fluid models, magnetohydrodynamics, MHD turbulence, instabilities, discontinuities, and magnetic reconnection. Some prior knowledge of classical physics is required, in particular fluid mechanics, statistical physics, and electrodynamics. The mathematical developments are self-contained and explicitly detailed in the text. A number of exercises are provided at the end of each chapter, together with suggestions and solutions.
Most of the visible matter in the universe exists in the plasma state. Plasmas are of major importance for space physics, solar physics, and astrophysics. On Earth they are essential for magnetic controlled thermonuclear fusion. This textbook collects lecture notes from a one-semester course taught at the K.U. Leuven to advanced undergraduate students in applied mathematics and physics. A particular strength of this book is that it provides a low threshold introduction to plasmas with an emphasis on first principles and fundamental concepts and properties. The discussion of plasma models is to a large extent limited to Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) with its merits and limitations clearly explained. MHD provides the students on their first encounter with plasmas, with a powerful plasma model that they can link to familiar classic fluid dynamics. The solar wind is studied as an example of hydrodynamics and MHD at work in solar physics and astrophysics.
The twentieth century has witnessed the transformation of astronomy from celestial mechanics to astrophysics. While optical telescopes may have presented a peek into the structure of the constituents of the universe, such as stars and galaxies, new windows of observation have revealed far more amorphous objects, from nebulae and sheets to filaments and voids, whose "violent" processes include flares, shocks, accretion disks and jets. In these processes, plasma is often the constituent matter-- as well as the medium through which the astrophysical setting becomes so violent. In this graduate level text, Tajima and Shibata offer a new synthesis starting where classic works on plasma physics left off. Beginning with a view of plasma astrophysics through fundamental processes of quasi-magnetostatic equilibria, quasi-hydrostatic equilibria, and non-equilibria, the authors go on to develop unique approaches to violent astrophysical plasmas-- as opposed to the more quiescent laboratory variety-- and their processes. The text continues with an exploration of the fundamental processes in hydrostatic, magnetostatic, and gravitational objects. The final chapter is devoted to a discussion of the applications of plasma astrophysics to cosmology, anticipating future developments in this exciting field.This text will be of enormous use to graduate-- and some advanced undergraduate-- students, as well as to physicists entering the field of plasma physics.
This two-part book is devoted to classic fundamentals and current practices and perspectives of modern plasma astrophysics. This first part uniquely covers all the basic principles and practical tools required for understanding and work in plasma astrophysics. More than 25% of the text is updated from the first edition, including new figures, equations and entire sections on topics such as magnetic reconnection and the Grad-Shafranov equation. The book is aimed at professional researchers in astrophysics, but it will also be useful to graduate students in space sciences, geophysics, applied physics and mathematics, especially those seeking a unified view of plasma physics and fluid mechanics.
This textbook is intended as an introduction to the physics of solar and stellar coronae, emphasizing kinetic plasma processes. It is addressed to observational astronomers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates without a ba- ground in plasma physics. Coronal physics is today a vast field with many different aims and goals. So- ing out the really important aspects of an observed phenomenon and using the physics best suited for the case is a formidable problem. There are already several excellent books, oriented toward the interests of astrophysicists, that deal with the magnetohydrodynamics of stellar atmospheres, radiation transport, and radiation theory. In kinetic processes, the different particle velocities play an important role. This is the case when particle collisions can be neglected, for example in very brief phenomena – such as one period of a high-frequency wave – or in effects produced by energetic particles with very long collision times. Some of the most persistent problems of solar physics, like coronal heating, shock waves, flare energy release, and particle acceleration, are likely to be at least partially related to such p- cesses. Study of the Sun is not regarded here as an end in itself, but as the source of information for more general stellar applications. Our understanding of stellar processes relies heavily, in turn, on our understanding of solar processes. Thus an introduction to what is happening in hot, dilute coronae necessarily starts with the plasma physics of our nearest star.
This textbook is intended as an introduction to the physics of solar and stellar coronae, emphasizing kinetic plasma processes. It is addressed to observational astronomers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates without a back ground in plasma physics. Coronal physics is today a vast field with many different aims and goals. Sort ing out the really important aspects of an observed phenomenon and using the physics best suited for the case is a formidable problem. There are already several excellent books, oriented toward the interests of astrophysicists, that deal with the magnetohydrodynamics of stellar atmospheres, radiation transport, and radiation theory. In kinetic processes, the different particle velocities play an important role. This is the case when particle collisions can be neglected, for example in very brief phenomena - such as one period of a high-frequency wave - or in effects produced by energetic particles with very long collision times. Some of the most persistent problems of solar physics, like coronal heating, shock waves, flare energy release, and particle acceleration, are likely to be at least partially related to such pro cesses. Study of the Sun is not regarded here as an end in itself, but as the source of information for more general stellar applications. Our understanding of stellar processes relies heavily, in turn, on our understanding of solar processes. Thus an introduction to what is happening in hot, dilute coronae necessarily starts with the plasma physics of our nearest star.
The physics of plasmas is an extremely rich and complex subject as the variety of topics addressed in this book demonstrates. This richness and complexity demands new and powerful techniques for investigating plasma physics. An outgrowth from his graduate course teaching, now with corrections, Tajima's text provides not only a lucid introduction to computational plasma physics, but also offers the reader many examples of the way numerical modeling, properly handled, can provide valuable physical understanding of the nonlinear aspects so often encountered in both laboratory and astrophysical plasmas. Included here are computational methods for modern nonlinear physics as applied to hydrodynamic turbulence, solitons, fast reconnection of magnetic fields, anomalous transports, dynamics of the sun, and more. The text contains examples of problems now solved using computational techniques including those concerning finite-size particles, spectral techniques, implicit differencing, gyrokinetic approaches, and particle simulation.
This two-part book is devoted to classic fundamentals and current practices and perspectives of modern plasma astrophysics. This second part discusses the physics of magnetic reconnection and flares of electromagnetic origin in space plasmas in the solar system, single and double stars, relativistic objects, accretion disks and their coronae. More than 25% of the text is updated from the first edition, included the additions of new figures, equations and entire sections on topics such as topological triggers for solar flares and the magnetospheric physics problem. This book is aimed at professional researchers in astrophysics, but it will also be useful to graduate students in space sciences, geophysics, applied physics and mathematics, especially those seeking a unified view of plasma physics and fluid mechanics.