Yves Elskens

Microscopic Dynamics of Plasmas and Chaos

Some of the key intellectual foundations of plasma physics are in danger of becoming a lost art. Fortunately, however, this threat recedes with the publication of this valuable book. It renders accessible those aspects of theoretical plasma physics that are best approached from the perspectives of classical mechanics, in both its early nineteenth century and late twentieth century manifestations. Half a century has elapsed since the publication of seminal papers such as those by Bohm and Pines (1951), van Kampen (1955), and Bernstein, Greene and Kruskal (1957). These papers served to address a fundamental question of physics - namely the relation between degrees of freedom that exist at the individual particle level of description, and those that exist at the collective level - in the plasma context. The authors of the present book have played a major role in the investigation of this question from an N-body standpoint, which can be divided into two linked themes. First, those topics that can be illuminated by analytical methods that lie in the tradition of classical mechanics that stretches back to Lagrange, Legendre and Hamilton. Second, those topics that benefit from the insights developed following the redevelopment of classical mechanics in relation to chaos theory in the 1980s and subsequently. The working plasma physicist who wishes to dig more deeply in this field is faced at present with a number of challenges. These may include a perception that this subfield is of limited relevance to mission-oriented questions of plasma performance; a perception of the research literature as being self-contained and inaccessible; and, linked to this, unfamiliarity with the mathematical tools. The latter problem is particularly pressing, given the limited coverage of classical mechanics in many undergraduate physics courses. The book by Elskens and Escande meets many of the challenges outlined above. The rewards begin early, by the end of the second chapter, with beautiful derivations of the self-consistent Lagrangian for wave-particle interactions, followed by an equivalent Hamiltonian formulation in terms of action-angle variables. In the following two chapters, these and related techniques are used to explore the deepest topics of plasma dynamics and wave theory, often from a beam-plasma perspective. The book begins afresh at chapter 5, which is an ambitious attempt to summarise modern classical dynamics. This chapter begins well, with a nice introduction to action-angle variables (these have already been extensively exploited in the preceding chapters, however!), but the account eventually became too compressed for the present reviewer. There follow two further chapters on both diffusion and the single-wave-particle system. Perhaps this book is best considered as a companion to the research literature (indeed there is a useful and extensive bibliography), rather than as a conventionally structured textbook. Certainly it is a book that should be read backwards and sideways, as well as forwards. Most readers, for example, will be more familiar with the Vlasov-Poisson system than with the N-body approach to particles and fields that is developed here: their natural starting point will perhaps be appendix G.4 of the present volume. Nor does the book provide a free-standing account of plasma dynamics from the chosen perspective. For example, prior familiarity with van Kampen modes in the Vlasov--Poisson description would greatly assist understanding of chapter 3. Challenging exercises are embedded in the text throughout (even in the otherwise excellent appendices), with answers not necessarily provided. Altogether, this book provides a wealth of theoretical information that is not easily accessible from any other source. It is a book with character, written from a definite viewpoint, but it also facilitates the development of the readers own perspective by offering a clear path to the original research literature. R O Dendy

Slowly pulsating separatrices sweep homoclinic tangles where islands must be small: an extension of classical adiabatic theory

The universal description of orbits in the domain swept by a slowly varying separatrix is provided through a symplectic map derived by means of an extension of classical adiabatic theory. This map connects action-angle-like variables of an orbit when far from the instantaneous separatrix to time-energy variables at a reference point of the orbit very close to the corresponding separatrix. When the separatrix pulsates periodically with a small frequency epsilon , the authors combine this map with WKB theory to obtain a description of the structure underlying chaos: the homoclinic tangle related to the hyperbolic fixed point whose separatrix is pulsating. For each extremum of the area within the pulsating separatrix, an initial branch of length O(1/ epsilon ) of the stable manifold is explicitly constructed, and makes O(1/ epsilon ) transverse homoclinic intersections with a similar branch of the unstable manifold.

Phase transition in the collisionless damping regime for wave-particle interaction

Gibbs statistical mechanics is derived for the Hamiltonian system coupling a wave to N particles self-consistently. This identifies Landau damping with a regime where a second order phase transition occurs. For nonequilibrium initial data with warm particles, a critical initial wave intensity is found: above it, thermodynamics predicts a finite wave amplitude in the limit N-->infinity; below it, the equilibrium amplitude vanishes. Simulations support these predictions providing new insight into the long-time nonlinear fate of the wave due to Landau damping in plasmas.

Long-time discrete particle effects versus kinetic theory in the self-consistent single-wave model.

The influence of the finite number N of particles coupled to a monochromatic wave in a collisionless plasma is investigated. For growth as well as damping of the wave, discrete particle numerical simulations show an N-dependent long time behavior resulting from the dynamics of individual particles. This behavior differs from the one due to the numerical errors incurred by Vlasov approaches. Trapping oscillations are crucial to long time dynamics, as the wave oscillations are controlled by the particle distribution inhomogeneities and the pulsating separatrix crossings drive the relaxation towards thermal equilibrium.

Explicit reduction of N-body dynamics to self-consistent particle–wave interaction

The one-dimensional (1-D) spatially periodic system of N classical particles, interacting via a Coulomb-like repulsive long-range force, is studied using classical mechanics. The usual Bohm–Gross dispersion relation for the collective modes is obtained in the absence of quasiresonant particles. In the presence of R quasiresonant particles, the evolution equations for M long-wavelength modes are coupled to the particles’ motion through a self-consistent wave–particle Hamiltonian. The wave–particle Lagrangian is derived from the full N-body Lagrangian. The derivation relies on an explicit scale separation argument and avoids the use of kinetic theory and continuous medium formalism.

Kinetic limit of N-body description of wave-particle self-consistent interaction

AbstractA system of N particles

Ergodic theory of the mixmaster model in higher space-time dimensions

\xi ^N = x_1 ,\upsilon_1,...,x_N ,\upsilon _N )

Collective effects in complex plasma

interacting self-consistently with one wave Z = A exp(iφ) is considered. Given initial data (Z(N)(0), ξN(0)), it evolves according to Hamiltonian dynamics to (Z(N)(t), ξN(t)). In the limit N → ∞, this generates a Vlasov-like kinetic equation for the distribution function f(x, v, t), abbreviated as f(t), coupled to the envelope equation for Z: initial data (Z(∞)(0), f(0)) evolve to (Z(∞)(t), f(t)). The solution (Z, f) exists and is unique for any initial data with finite energy. Moreover, for any time T>0, given a sequence of initial data with N particles distributed so that the particle distribution fN(0) → f(0) weakly and with Z(N)(0) → Z(0) as N → ∞, the states generated by the Hamiltonian dynamics at all times 0 ≤ t ≤ T are such that (Z(N)(t), fN(t)) converges weakly to (Z(∞)(t), f(t)).