CHAOS AND STRUCTURES IN NONLINEAR PLASMAS
by W Horton (Univ. Texas, Austin, USA) & Y-H Ichikawa (Chubu Univ., Japan)
Dr Wendell Horton has made many contributions to the development of plasma turbulence theory concerning anomalous transport in magnetic confinement systems. He is also actively involved in space plasma physics research and especially the study of plasma flows and self-organized vortex structures. He is a Professor in the Department of Physics and also a Research Scientist in the Institute for Fusion Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Space Physics and Astronomy at Rice University.
Dr Yoshi Ichikawa has made many contributions to the development of theories for the statistical properties of plasma turbulence, the theory of solitons in plasmas and the properties of nonlinear maps. He was a Professor in the College of Engineering in Nihon University, Tokyo. Then he was a professor of physics at the Institute of Plasma Physics, Nagoya University, and subsequently at its successor, the National Institute for Fusion Science. At present he is a professor of applied mathematics at Chubu University.
This book develops the subject of nonlinear plasma physics from a general physics perspective. It begins with a description of nonlinear oscillations, the parametric instability, the pendulum, and the nonlinear island overlap criterion. The Kolomogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM) theory is analyzed. Laboratory visualizations of the KAM theory are presented for experiments in toroidal plasma confinement and rotating fluids. The subjects of transport in E x B flows and geostrophic flows are developed in parallel, stressing the generality of the Charney-Hasegawa-Mima equation. The dual nature of wave turbulence and vortex dynamics is developed for plasmas and geophysical flows. The presentation of the subject of nonlinear maps shows how maps are related to the nonlinear dynamics in plasma physics problems. Numerous space plasma and fusion physics examples are developed throughout the book. The final chapter deals with turbulence theory, renormalized mode coupling equations, and Kolomogorov-type spectra as modified for anisotropic plasmas.
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