Physics Of Nonneutral Plasmas

A nonneutral plasma is a many-body collection of charged particles in which there is not overall charge neutrality. The diverse areas of application of nonneutral plasmas include: precision atomic clocks, trapping of antimatter plasmas and antihydrogen production, quantum computers, nonlinear vortex dynamics and fundamental transport processes in trapped nonneutral plasmas, strongly-coupled one-component plasmas and Coulomb crystals, coherent radiation generation in free electron devices, such as free electron lasers, magnetrons and cyclotron masers, and intense charged particle beam propagation in periodic focusing accelerators and transport systems, to mention a few examples. Physics of Nonneutral Plasmas is a graduate-level text — complete with 138 assigned problems and the results from several classic experiments — which covers a broad range of topics related to the fundamental properties of collective processes and nonlinear dynamics of one-component and multispecies charged particle systems in which there is not overall charge neutrality. The subject matter is treated systematically from first principles, using a unified theoretical approach, and the emphasis is on the development of basic concepts that illustrate the underlying physical processes in circumstances where intense self fields play a major role in determining the evolution of the system. The theoretical analysis includes the full influence of dc space charge effects on detailed equilibrium, stability and transport properties. The statistical models used to describe the properties of nonneutral plasmas are based on the nonlinear Vlasov-Maxwell equations, the macroscopic fluid-Maxwell equations, or the Klimontovich-Maxwell equations, as appropriate, and extensive use is made of theoretical techniques developed in the description of multispecies electrically-neutral plasmas, as well as established techniques in classical mechanics, electrodynamics and statistical physics.Physics of Nonneutral Plasmas emphasizes basic physics principles, and the thorough presentation style is intended to have a lasting appeal to graduate students and researchers alike. Because of the advanced theoretical techniques developed for describing one-component charged particle systems, this book serves as a useful companion volume to Physics of Intense Charged Particle Beams in High Energy Accelerators by Ronald C Davidson and Hong Qin.

A nonneutral plasma is a many-body collection of charged particles in which there is not overall charge neutrality. Such systems are characterized by intense self-electric fields, and in high-current configurations by intense self-magnetic fields. Nonneutral plasmas, like electrically neutral plasmas, exhibit a broad range of collective properties, such as plasma waves, instabilities, and Debye shielding. Moreover, the intense self fields in a nonneutral plasma can have a large influence on detailed plasma behavior and stability properties.Since the early 1970s, this important area of physics has developed into a diverse and sophisticated subfield of pure and applied plasma physics. Physics of Nonneutral Plasmas is a graduate-level text which covers a broad range of topics related to the fundamental properties and applications of nonneutral plasmas. The subject matter is treated systematically from first principles using a unified theoretical approach, and the emphasis is on the development of basic concepts that illustrate the underlying physical processes. The book includes 138 problems, 143 figures and illustrations, and the results from several classic experiments illustrating fundamental processes in nonneutral plasmas and coherent electromagnetic wave generation by relativistic electrons. Its thorough treatment of the subject gives it broad and lasting appeal to graduate students and researchers in the field.

This book contains the proceedings of the Workshop on Non-Neutral Plasmas 2006. The Workshop focused on fundamental questions regarding confinement and dynamics of one-component plasmas as well as the relevance of these subjects to other related topics in physics, such as antimatter research, accelerator physics, atomic physics, and dusty plasmas.

This workshop was the first one in this series held since the announcement of the formation of cold anti-hydrogen by the ATHENA and ATRAP experiments. Research presented includes transport, collective modes, and the interplay between the two from both a particle and fluid perspective. This work is carried out in different geometries including cylindrical traps and toroidal systems. Research on cold anti-hydrogen is also represented, since accumulation of large numbers of antiprotons and positrons is a necessary precursor to recombination. Finally, several papers describing experiments on the physics of beams widens the scope to include beams and accelerators. The Workshop on Non-Neutral Plasma Physics brings together investigators from diverse areas whose research has the common feature of involving plasmas that have constituent particles with the same sign of charge.