Module Identifier | PHM8510 | ||||||||
Module Title | PLASMA AND SPACE PHYSICS | ||||||||
Academic Year | 2004/2005 | ||||||||
Co-ordinator | Dr Eleri Pryse | ||||||||
Semester | Semester 1 | ||||||||
Other staff | Dr Hien B Vo | ||||||||
Pre-Requisite | Successful Completion of Year 3 of the MPhys Scheme | ||||||||
Course delivery | Lecture | 20 lectures | |||||||
Assessment |
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Motion of a single charged particle in
(a) a homogenous magnetic field; gyro-radius and frequency.
(b) a converging magnetic field; magnetic mirror.
(c) an inhomogenous magnetic field; drift motion.
(d) a magnetic field with a perpendicular electric field.
Magnetohydrodynamics: Maxwell's equations applied to a plasma; diffusion time of magnetic field in a plasma; "frozen-in" fields, magnetic Reynold's number.
Waves in a plasma: electron plasma waves, ion-acoustic waves, MHD waves, shear Alfven waves, fast-mode (compressional) waves.
Types of instability, two-stream instability (simple "doppler-shift" treatment), Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities (qualitative treatment).
This module is at CQFW Level 7