We now come to another series of books the ABC of … series. One of the first books that I had read of this series was ABC of Quantum Mechanics, which is lost somewhere. In this post we see A Physicist’s ABC of Plasma Physics by L. A. Artsimovich.

The Preface of the book written by Prof. B. B. Kadomtsev says:

This small book written by the late Lev Artsimovich, a Full Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, is the lecture course he delivered for the physicists interested in plasma physics. The book presents the fundamental information on the high-temperature plasma physics. These, at present largely well established results, comprise, in effect, the sum of knowledge indispensable for any physicist with a wide enough sphere of interests.

By now, some material in the book has become somewhat dated; for instance, plasmas generated in Tokamaks and adiabatic traps have now more impressive parameters and we have now a markedly better understanding of the processes in them. However, since the general conceptual system has not undergone any major changes we have deemed it unwise to alter the original author’s presentation of ideas and, therefore, no significant changes have been made in the original text. Hence, the material presented in the book comprises, in the opinion of L. Artsimovich, the fundamental results obtained through many years of experimental and theoretical research in the high temperature plasma physics.

The book was translated from the Russian by Oleg Glebov and was first published by Mir in 1978.

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This post is dedicated to Mubs, hope you also write a similar book in the future.

Contents of the book are as under:

Preface 7
1. Definition of Plasma 9
2. Motion of Electrons and Ions in Plasma in the Absence of External Fields 17
3. Plasma Behaviour in Electric Fields 28
4. Plasma Behaviour in Magnetic Field 37
5. The Effect of the Magnetic Field on Characteristics of the Plasma 48
6. Results Derived from Magneto-hydrodynamic Equations 58
7. Development of Experimental Target 65
8. Conditions for Existence of a Plasma Ring 72
9. The Theory of Stability 85
10. Plasma Behaviour in Traps with Magnetic Mirrors 93
11. Stability of Plasma Configurations 101
12. Shear Stabilization 110
13. Other Plasma Instabilities 112
Bibliography 124

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