Module Identifier PHM8510  
Module Title PLASMA AND SPACE PHYSICS  
Academic Year 2005/2006  
Co-ordinator Dr Eleri Pryse  
Semester Semester 1  
Other staff Dr Eleri Pryse  
Pre-Requisite Successful Completion of Year 3 of the MPhys Scheme  
Course delivery Lecture   20 lectures  
Assessment
Assessment TypeAssessment Length/DetailsProportion
Semester Exam3 Hours end of semester examination  100%

Learning outcomes

After taking this module students should be able to:

Brief description

The core of the course will cover the essentials of plasma physics, including the nature of a plasma, motion of single charged particles in a magnetic field, magnetohydrodynamics, waves in plasma, and instabilities. The theory will be illustrated by examples from interplanetary space and the magnetosphere.

Content

Occurrence of plasmas, temperature of a plasma, Debye shielding, plasma oscillations.

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).

Reading Lists

Books
** Reference Text
Francis F Chen Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
Kivelson M G and Russell C T Introduction to Space Physics

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 7