Instabilities in a confined plasma

This is a large and important work by one of the leading Russian contributors to this subject. It covers topics of central importance to magnetic fusion energy research with a breadth, depth and clarity not found elsewhere. It is intended as a reference book and guide to the original literature for serious practitioners of the field. The book is divided into 8 large parts, listed below, and further subdivided into 31 chapters. The preface states, ``A need was identified to summarize the large amount of information on the topic of instabilities. This information is scattered throughout many papers on certain special subjects on the theory of toroidal-plasma instabilities. This book aims to treat it from a unified point of view.'' This is a good description of the aims and approach. The range of topics is large and the treatment deep and thorough. This is often accomplished by assuming considerable knowledge on the part of the reader, most appropriate for mature researchers in the field. The pace is fast. The requisite background includes extensive knowledge of a wide range of physics, ordinary and partial differential equations, integral equations, differential geometry and special functions. The preface also states, ``The author starts with the fundamental principles, so that no special knowledge of plasma physics is necessary before reading the book. It will therefore be useful for researchers, postgraduates, high-school teachers and students specializing in plasma physics and controlled fusion.'' In the opinion of this reviewer, that may be overly ambitious. The terse approach, characteristic of the whole book, as well as the steep price, would make it rather challenging for such an audience. For example, in the opening chapter, `General results of equilibrium theory', the properties of non-orthogonal, curvilinear co-ordinates are stated tersely without much explanation or derivation, more as a review than a first presentation. It is common for physics students, at least in the USA, to encounter this material first in a course on general relativity, which they might not have taken previously when specializing in plasma physics. While good efforts are made by the author to provide an intuitive understanding of the many analytical results, this is often done with such brevity that a substantial level of maturity is required to comprehend the ideas. Another quote from the preface is, ``The book is based on analytical approaches and should therefore be useful for everybody who is interested in the topic.'' In a field where complex geometry and dynamics and the importance of practical results have required much novel and creative computational work over the past 25 years, there is no mention, no acknowledgment, no hint of its importance. The analytical approach presented here certainly fills an important need, and there is no need for the same work to cover numerical work in depth, but some recognition of the importance of numerical work and its relationship with the analytical side of the theory might have been justified. Despite these shortcomings, this book is a major and welcome addition to the literature on plasma instabilities which I heartily recommend. Contents: 1. Equilibrium of a plasma in toroidal confinement systems; 2. Internal magnetohydrodynamic modes in the cylindrical approximation; 3. Small-scale magnetohydrodynamic instabilities in toroidal confinement systems; 4. Magnetohydrodynamic internal kink modes in toroidal geometry; 5. Magnetohydrodynamic modes in collisionless and neoclassical regimes; 6. Drift-magnetohydrodynamic modes; 7. External kink modes; 8. Alfven eigenmodes and their interaction with high-energy particles; References; Index.