Lecture Timeline · PC368
Introduction to Plasma Physics in teaching order (semester 1, Friday 3-hour lectures — 15 weeks). Reference texts: Bellan; Chen; Dendy.
| Lecture | Week | Topics | Wiki pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lec 1 | 1 | What is a plasma? Fusion motivation, plasma parameters | Plasma · Ideal plasma · Fusion energy · Lawson criterion · Magnetic confinement · Plasma frequency (eq.) · Debye length (eq.) |
| Lec 2 | 2 | Debye shielding, quasi-neutrality | Debye shielding · Quasi-neutrality · Poisson equation — 🔬 Debye shielding lab |
| Lec 3 | 2–3 | Plasma oscillations & frequency | Plasma frequency |
| Lec 4 | 3–4 | Collisions & transport; Vlasov equation, two-fluid picture | Coulomb collisions · Vlasov equation · Vlasov (eq.) |
| Lec 5 | 5 | Magnetohydrodynamics: fluid description, frozen-in flux | MHD · Frozen-in theorem · Continuity (eq.) · Momentum (eq.) · Induction (eq.) · Alfvén velocity (eq.) |
| Lec 6 | 5 | Sheath physics, current balance, the Langmuir probe | Plasma sheath · Langmuir probe |
| Lec 7 | 6–7 | Single-particle motion: gyration and drifts | Larmor radius · Drift motions — 🔬 Drift orbit lab |
| Lec 8 | 6 | Adiabatic invariants, magnetic mirrors, the loss cone | Adiabatic invariant · Magnetic mirror · Loss cone · Loss-cone angle (eq.) |
| Lec 9–10 | 8 | Elementary plasma waves | Plasma waves · Langmuir waves · Ion-acoustic waves · Sound speed |
| Lec 11 | 9 | EM waves in plasma; streaming instabilities | EM waves in plasma · Streaming instability — simulated live in PHY653 |
| Lec 12 | 9 | The Landau problem | Landau damping · Landau dispersion (eq.) |
| Lec 13 | 10–12 | Cold plasma waves in magnetized plasma | Dielectric tensor · Magnetized waves · Resonance cones · Cold-plasma dispersion (eq.) — 🔬 Wave explorer |
| Lec 14 | 13–14 | Force-free fields, magnetic stress; static & dynamic MHD equilibria | Magnetic stress tensor · MHD equilibrium · Pinch equilibria · Virial theorem · Bennett relation (eq.) · Grad–Shafranov (eq.) |
| Lec 15 | 14 | MHD dynamics & instabilities; the energy principle | MHD instability · Interchange instability · Sausage & kink · Energy principle |
| Lec 16 | 15 | Magnetic islands & reconnection | Magnetic islands · Magnetic reconnection |
| Lec 17 | 15 | The Sweet–Parker model | Sweet–Parker model · Reconnection rate (eq.) · Lundquist number (eq.) — 🔬 Reconnection rate lab |
🔬 = an interactive widget covers this lecture. See all four in Simulations, and put numbers to them in the worked examples.