Aspects of Anomalous Transport in Plasmas / Edition 1

by Radu Balescu

Overview

Anomalous transport is a ubiquitous phenomenon in astrophysical, geophysical and laboratory plasmas; and is a key topic in controlled nuclear fusion research. Despite its fundamental importance and ongoing research interest, a full understanding of anomalous transport in plasmas is still incomplete, due to the complexity of the nonlinear phenomena involved.

Aspects in Anomalous Transport in Plasmas is the first book to systematically consider anomalous plasma transport theory and provides a unification of the many theoretical models by emphasizing interrelations between seemingly different methodologies. It is not intended as a catalogue of the vast number of plasma instabilities leading to anomalous transport; instead it chooses a number of these and emphasizes the aspects specifically due to turbulence.

After a brief introduction, the microscopic theory of turbulence is discussed, including quasilinear theory and various aspects of renormalization methods, which leads to an understanding of resonance broadening, mode coupling, trajectory correlation and clumps. The second half of the book is devoted to stochiastic tramsport, using methods based on the Langevin equations and on Random Walk theory. This treatment aims at going beyond the traditional limits of weak turbulence, by introducing the recently developed method of decorrelation trajectories, and its application to electrostatic turbulence, magnetic turbulence and zonal flow generation. The final chapter includes very recent work on the nonlocal transport phenomenon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780750310307
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/01/2005
Series:	Series in Plasma Physics , #18
Pages:	490
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Balescu, Radu

Table of Contents

Introduction. Macroscopic Plasmadynamical Equations. Drift Waves. Microscopic Equations for Plasma Fluctuations. Definition of Anomalous Fluxes. Anomalous Fluxes and Correlations. Quasilinear Transport Theory. Closure and Renormalization. The Coherent Direct Interaction Approximation. Mode Coupling and Trajectory Correlation. Langevin Equations. Random Walks and Transport. Relative Diffusion and Clumps. Diffusion in a Stochastic Electrostatic Field. Diffusion in a Stochastic Magnetic Field. Drift Waves and Zonal Flows. Nonlocal Transport. Appendices.