Landau damping

In physics, Landau damping, named after its discoverer,[1] Soviet physicist Lev Davidovich Landau (1908–68), is the effect of damping (exponential decrease as a function of time) of longitudinal space charge waves in plasma or a similar environment.[2] This phenomenon prevents an instability from developing, and creates a region of stability in the parameter space. It was later argued by Donald Lynden-Bell that a similar phenomenon was occurring in galactic dynamics,[3] where the gas of electrons interacting by electrostatic forces is replaced by a "gas of stars" interacting by gravitational forces.[4] Landau damping can be manipulated exactly in numerical simulations such as particle-in-cell simulation.[5] It was proved to exist experimentally by Malmberg and Wharton in 1964,[6] almost two decades after its prediction by Landau in 1946.[7]

  1. ^ Landau, L. "On the vibration of the electronic plasma". JETP 16 (1946), 574. English translation in J. Phys. (USSR) 10 (1946), 25. Reproduced in Collected papers of L.D. Landau, edited and with an introduction by D. ter Haar, Pergamon Press, 1965, pp. 445–460; and in Men of Physics: L.D. Landau, Vol. 2, Pergamon Press, D. ter Haar, ed. (1965).
  2. ^ Chen, Francis F. Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. Second Ed., 1984 Plenum Press, New York.
  3. ^ Lynden-Bell, D (1962). "The stability and vibrations of a gas of stars". Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 124 (4): 279–296. Bibcode:1962MNRAS.124..279L. doi:10.1093/mnras/124.4.279.
  4. ^ Binney, J., and Tremaine, S. Galactic Dynamics, second ed. Princeton Series in Astrophysics. Princeton University Press, 2008.
  5. ^ Woo Myung, Chang; Koo Lee, Jae (2014). "Finite Amplitude Effects on Landau Damping and Diminished Transportation of Trapped Electrons". Journal of the Physical Society of Japan. 83 (7): 074502. Bibcode:2014JPSJ...83g4502M. doi:10.7566/jpsj.83.074502.
  6. ^ Malmberg, J. H.; Wharton, C. B. (1964-08-10). "Collisionless Damping of Electrostatic Plasma Waves". Physical Review Letters. 13 (6): 184–186. Bibcode:1964PhRvL..13..184M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.184.
  7. ^ Landau, L. D. "On the vibrations of the electronic plasma". Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 16: 574–86 (reprinted 1965 Collected Papers of Landau ed D ter Haar (Oxford: Pergamon) pp 445–60).