Query: Theories and methods of plasma physics research

title: Contributions of plasma physics to chaos and nonlinear dynamics
abstract: This topical review focusses on the contributions of plasma physics to chaos and nonlinear dynamics bringing new methods which are or can be used in other scientific domains. It starts with the development of the theory of Hamiltonian chaos, and then deals with order or quasi order, for instance adiabatic and soliton theories. It ends with a shorter account of dissipative and high dimensional Hamiltonian dynamics, and of quantum chaos. Most of these contributions are a spin off of the research on thermonuclear fusion by magnetic confinement, which started in the fifties. Their presentation is both exhaustive and compact.

title: RIKEN BNL RESEARCH CENTER WORKSHOP ON GAUGE INVARIANT VARIABLES IN GAUGE THEORIES, VOLUME 20
abstract: This four day workshop focused on the wide variety of approaches to the non perturbative physics of QCD. The main topic was the formulation of non Abelian gauge theory in orbit space, but some other ideas were discussed, in particular the possible extension of the Maldacena conjecture to nonsupersymmetric gauge theories. The idea was to involve most of the participants in general discussions on the problem. Panel discussions were organized to further encourage debate and understanding. Most of the talks roughly fell into three categories: (1) Variational methods in field theory; (2) Anti de Sitter space ideas; (3) The fundamental domain, gauge fixing, Gribov copies and topological objects (both in the continuum and on a lattice) In particular some remarkable progress in three dimensional gauge theories was presented, from the analytic side by V.P. Nair and mostly from the numerical side by O. Philipsen. This work may ultimately have important implications for RHIC experiments on the high temperature quark gluon plasma.

title: Integrable Hamiltonian Hierarchies Spectral and Geometric Methods
abstract: In the past decades there has been significant progress in the theory of the nonlinear evolution equations that could be solved through some inverse scattering techniques (soliton equations or completely integrable equations) These equations have many applications to various physical theories (both classical and quantum) such as hydrodynamics, plasma physics, nonlinear optics, solid state physics etc. Their study also boosted the mathematical research in Hamiltonian dynamics and more generally in the theory of the dynamical systems and in the spectral theory of operators. The mentioned progress, together with interesting applications, increased the number of research monographs dedicated to the subject of soliton equations. The variety of approaches used in these monographs reflects the variety of the methods used in the study of the soliton equations. In general however, most of them are dedicated to the development of one particular approach and the interrelations with other approaches and ideas frequently remains obscure. The book under review is one of the few exceptions. It develops in parallel spectral and geometric methods to the topic and also encompasses many algebraic ideas related to these fields. The fist edition has been published in 2008, by the same publisher. The appearance of this soft cover reprint shows that the readers appreciated the integral approach of the book and that the topic itself remains popular. The book has two parts: I) Spectral Theory of the Recursion Operators and II) Geometry of the Recursion Operators, treating the so called Recursion Operators (also known as generating operators or L operators) from spectral and geometric viewpoint respectively. The recursion operators are one of the essential tools of the soliton equations theory, in fact their study reveals almost everything related to the soliton equations except the exact solutions. Finding the exact solutions requires other techniques which are also treated in the book. The authors contributed to the development of both aspects of the recursion operator theory, discussed in

title: Plasma based studies on 4th generation light sources
abstract: The construction of a short pulse tunable x ray laser source will be a watershed for plasma based and warm dense matter research. The areas we will discuss below can be separated broadly into warm dense matter (WDM) research, laser probing of near solid density plasmas, and laser plasma spectroscopy of ions in plasmas. The area of WDM refers to that part of the density temperature phase space where the standard theories of condensed matter physics and/or plasma statistical physics are invalid. Warm dense matter, therefore, defines a region between solids and plasmas, a regime that is found in planetary interiors, cool dense stars, and in every plasma device where one starts from a solid, e.g. laser solid matter produced plasma as well as all inertial fusion schemes. The study of dense plasmas has been severely hampered by the fact that laser based methods have been unavailable. The single most useful diagnostic of local plasma conditions, e.g. the temperature (Te) the density (ne) and the ionization

title: 9th World Congress on Computational Mechanics and 4th Asian Pacific Congress on Computational Mechanics
abstract: The use for mathematical models of natural phenomena has underpinned science and engineering for centuries, but until the advent of modern computers and computational methods, the full utility of most of these models remained outside the reach of the engineering communities. Since World War II, advances in computational methods have transformed the way engineering and science is undertaken throughout the world. Today, theories of mechanics of solids and fluids, electromagnetism, heat transfer, plasma physics, and other scientific disciplines are implemented through computational methods in engineering analysis, design, manufacturing, and in studying broad classes of physical phenomena. The discipline concerned with the application of computational methods is now a key area of research, education, and application throughout the world. In the early 1980's, the International Association for Computational Mechanics (IACM) was founded to promote activities related to computational mechanics and has made impressive progress. The most important scientific event of IACM is the World Congress on Computational Mechanics. The first was held in Austin (USA) in 1986 and then in Stuttgart (Germany) in 1990, Chiba (Japan) in 1994, Buenos Aires (Argentina) in 1998, Vienna (Austria) in 2002, Beijing (China) in 2004, Los Angeles (USA) in 2006 and Venice, Italy; in 2008. The 9th World Congress on Computational Mechanics is held in conjunction with the 4th Asian Pacific Congress on Computational Mechanics under the auspices of Australian Association for Computational Mechanics (AACM) Asian Pacific Association for Computational Mechanics (APACM) and International Association for Computational Mechanics (IACM) The 1st Asian Pacific Congress was in Sydney (Australia) in 2001, then in Beijing (China) in 2004 and Kyoto (Japan) in 2007. The WCCM/APCOM 2010 publications consist of a printed book of abstracts given to delegates, along with 247 full length peer reviewed papers published with free access online in IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering. The editors acknowledge the help of the paper reviewers in maintaining a high standard of assessment and the co operation of the authors in complying with the requirements of the editors and the reviewers. We also would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the Local Organising Committee and the International Scientific Committee for helping make WCCM/APCOM 2010 a successful event. We also thank The University of New South Wales, The University of Newcastle, the Centre for Infrastructure Engineering and Safety (CIES) IACM, APCAM, AACM for their financial support, along with the United States Association for Computational Mechanics for the Travel Awards made available. N. Khalili S. Valliappan Q. Li A. Russell 19 July 2010 Sydney,

title: IV European Congress on Computational Mechanics (ECCM IV):Solids, Structures and Coupled Problems in Engineering
abstract: The use for mathematical models of natural phenomena has underpinned science and engineering for centuries, but until the advent of modern computational methods and devices, the full utility of most of these models stood outside the reach of the scientific and engineering communities. Since World War II, advances in computational methods have transformed the way engineering and science is done throughout the world. Today, theories of mechanics of solids and fluids, electromagnetism, heat transfer, plasma physics, and other scientific disciplines are implemented through computational methods in engineering design, manufacturing, and in studying broad classes of physical phenomena. The discipline concerned with the application of computational methods and devices to these ends is called computational mechanics, and it has emerged as a key area of research, education, and application throughout the world. The international group of scholars and practitioners of this new discipline founded the international Association of Computational Mechanics (IACM) to promote advances in computational mechanics. To establish the breadth of this activity IACM defines in its constitution the field of Computational Mechanics as follows: "For the purposes of the Association we define the subject of Computational Mechanics as the development and application of numerical methods and digital computers to the solution of problems posed by Engineering and Applied Science with the objectives of understanding and harnessing the resources of nature. While Computational Solid Mechanics (CSM) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) are at the core of our activity, such subjects as Thermodynamics, Electro Magnetism, Rigid Body Mechanics, Control Systems and some aspects of Particle Physics fall naturally within the scope of the definition. Indeed the provision of a common forum for discussion, education and research information transfer between the diverse disciplines represented is the main "raison d'etre" of the Association." The first attempt to bring together this community followed a letter from three leading scientists working in this field, R.H. Gallagher, J.T. Oden and O.C. Zienkiewicz who called a meeting of 12 persons at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. in April 1981 to form a group of International Centers of Computational Mechanics. This led to the formal announcement of IACM and the establishment of a Founding Council and a Constitution. IACM was formally established, the General and Executive Councils confirmed and the Constitution approved. With the Constitution giving equal emphasis to the three geographical Regions of Americas, Euro Africa and Australia Asia a rotation of such World Congresses between the regions on a four year cycle was established. The International Association of Computational Mechanics (IACM) was founded to promote advances in computational mechanics by the international group of scholars and practitioners of this new discipline. IACM has since 1984 been affiliated to the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM)

title: Dynamics of Ar metastables in RF CCP discharge: PIC/MCC/DSMC simulation
abstract: Submitted for the GEC10 Meeting of The American Physical Society Dynamics of Ar metastables in RF CCP discharge: PIC/MCC/DSMC simulation LU JING HOU, MIKHAIL PUSTYLNIK, ALEXEI IVLEV, H.M. THOMAS, G.E. MORFILL, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics Metastables have long been expected to play an important role in determining properties of an argon (Ar) RF plasma discharge. In the past two decades, extensive experimental, theoretical and numerical research had been conducted to reveal their importance in RF discharge. However, obvious contradictions, which cannot be easily accommodated for different discharge conditions, are found between experiments and theories/simulations and between simulations using different models as well. This clearly indicates an insufficient understanding of physical processes involving metastables in RF discharge. To shed new light on the role of metastables on RF discharge, the present work employs combined PIC/MCC and Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) methods to study the dynamics of metastables in RF discharge. Both plasmas (ions and electrons) and metastables are treated as particles in the simulation and are coupled though various collision processes, such as metastable excitation, pooling, electron quenching, step ionization, metastable wall secondary electron emission, neutral metastable elastic collisions, in addition to those included in typical PIC/MCC simulation, such as direct ionization and excitation. Lu Jing Hou Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics Date submitted: 02 Jun 2010  1.4

title: Verification and validation of plasma physics
abstract: Plasma Modeling: Methods and Applications presents and discusses the different approaches that can be adopted for plasma modeling, giving details about theoretical and numerical methods. The book is intended to assist and direct students and researchers, who want to develop research activity in the field of plasma physics, in the choice of the best model for the problem of interest. The book is organised in three parts. The first describes kinetic models used in plasma investigations, consisting of the solution of the Boltzmann equation using different approaches. The second part develops the theory of fluid equations and of hybrid models, and the third part is devoted to applications, considering some practical problems of interest in different fields.

title: Boltzmann and Vlasov equations in plasma physics
abstract: Plasma Modeling: Methods and Applications presents and discusses the different approaches that can be adopted for plasma modeling, giving details about theoretical and numerical methods. The book is intended to assist and direct students and researchers, who want to develop research activity in the field of plasma physics, in the choice of the best model for the problem of interest. The book is organised in three parts. The first describes kinetic models used in plasma investigations, consisting of the solution of the Boltzmann equation using different approaches. The second part develops the theory of fluid equations and of hybrid models, and the third part is devoted to applications, considering some practical problems of interest in different fields.

title: Introduction to Plasma Physics: With Space, Laboratory and Astrophysical Applications
abstract: Introducing basic principles of plasma physics and their applications to space, laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, this new edition provides updated material throughout. Topics covered include single particle motions, kinetic theory, magnetohydrodynamics, small amplitude waves in hot and cold plasmas, and collisional effects. New additions include the ponderomotive force, tearing instabilities in resistive plasmas and the magnetorotational instability in accretion disks, charged particle acceleration by shocks, and a more in depth look at nonlinear phenomena. A broad range of applications are explored: planetary magnetospheres and radiation belts, the confinement and stability of plasmas in fusion devices, the propagation of discontinuities and shock waves in the solar wind, and analysis of various types of plasma waves and instabilities that can occur in planetary magnetospheres and laboratory plasma devices. With step by step derivations and self contained introductions to mathematical methods, this book is ideal as an advanced undergraduate to graduate level textbook, or as a reference for researchers.