Phase transition in the collisionless regime for wave-particle interaction
Plasma Physics
2009-11-06 v1 Statistical Mechanics
Dynamical Systems
Pattern Formation and Solitons
Abstract
Gibbs statistical mechanics is derived for the Hamiltonian system coupling self-consistently a wave to N particles. This identifies Landau damping with a regime where a second order phase transition occurs. For nonequilibrium initial data with warm particles, a critical initial wave intensity is found: above it, thermodynamics predicts a finite wave amplitude in the limit of infinite N; below it, the equilibrium amplitude vanishes. Simulations support these predictions providing new insight on the long-time nonlinear fate of the wave due to Landau damping in plasmas.
Cite
@article{arxiv.physics/0012053,
title = {Phase transition in the collisionless regime for wave-particle interaction},
author = {M. -C. Firpo and Y. Elskens},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0012053},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
12 pages (RevTeX), 2 figures (PostScript)