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The Plasma Universe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

Carl-Gunne Fälthammar
Carl-Gunne Fälthammar*
Affiliation:
Dept of Plasma Physics Royal Institute of Technology S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract

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The term “Plasma Universe”, coined by Hannes Alfvén, emphasizes the fact that plasma phenomena discovered in the laboratory and in accessible regions of space, must be important also in the rest of the universe, which consists almost entirely of matter in the plasma state.

Relevant aspects of this concept will be discussed. They include the response of the plasma to electric currents, the support of magnetic-field aligned electric fields, violation of the frozen-field condition, rapid release of magnetically stored energy, acceleration of charged particles, chemical separation, filamentary and cellular structures, and critical velocity interaction.

Type
I. Introduction
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 142: Basic Plasma Processes on the Sun , 1990 , pp. 9 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1990 

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