Lecture Topics

Outline:

1. Introduction, Shielding and the Debye Length

2. Motion of Charged Particles in Electromagnetic Fields

3. Fluid Description of a Plasma

4. Magnetohydrodynamics

5. Waves in Plasmas

There are many introductory texts covering the concepts in this course. While no text is required I recommend you add Chen's book to your library.

Chen, F., Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, 2nd Ed., Springer

There are also several web sites that contain notes on the concepts of plasma physics. Two are:

The MIT Open Courseware site at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Nuclear/Engineering

The notes of Dr. R. Fitzpatrick, Univ. of Texas Austin:

http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/plasma/lectures

Dr. J. V. Olson

REIC 110 (x6793), Elvey 706A (x7559)

Office Hours: MWF 8:30 - 10:30 AM, REIC 110

Email: jvo@gi.alaska.edu