Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T16:25:58.944Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Quasineutrality and parallel force balance in kinetic magnetohydrodynamics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

J. J. Ramos*
Affiliation:
Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
*
Email address for correspondence: [email protected]

Abstract

Kinetic magnetohydrodynamics refers usually to the hybrid fluid and kinetic description of a zero-Larmor-radius collisionless plasma, originally formulated in the classic papers of Kruskal and Oberman (1958) (Kruskal, M. D. and Oberman, C. R. 1958 Phys. Fluids1, 275), Rosenbluth and Rostoker (1959) (Rosenbluth, M. N. and Rostoker, N. 1959 Phys. Fluids2, 23), and Kulsrud (1962) (Kulsrud, R. 1962 Phys. Fluids5, 192). Such a theory is revisited here, as a special limit of the more general description put forward in Ramos (2010, 2011) (Ramos, J. J. 2010 Phys. Plasmas, 17, 082502; Ramos, J. J. 2011 Phys. Plasmas, 18, 102506). The present approach has the advantage of fulfilling the quasineutrality condition and avoiding the redundancy between the fluid and kinetic parallel force balance conditions with a built-in, rigorous account of the parallel electric field, thus affording a clear-cut handling of these issues. At zero-frequency marginal stability, the Rosenbluth–Rostoker fluid closures for the parallel and perpendicular pressures are obtained, in a solution with vanishing parallel electric field and non-zero parallel fluid displacement that satisfies exactly the desired quasineutrality and parallel force balance.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Kruskal, M. D. and Oberman, C. R. 1958 Phys. Fluids 1, 275.Google Scholar
Kulsrud, R. 1962a Phys. Fluids 5, 192.Google Scholar
Kulsrud, R. 1962b Course XXV Advanced Plasma Theory. In: Proc. Int. School of Physics ‘Enrico Fermi’, Varenna, Italy (ed. M. N. Rosenbluth). North Holland, New York, p. 54.Google Scholar
Lyons, B. C., Jardin, S. C. and Ramos, J. J. 2012 Phys. Plasmas 19, 082515.Google Scholar
Ramos, J. J. 2010 Phys. Plasmas 17, 082502.Google Scholar
Ramos, J. J. 2011 Phys. Plasmas 18, 102506.Google Scholar
Rosenbluth, M. N. and Rostoker, N. 1959 Phys. Fluids 2, 23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar