Related papers: Non-linear gyrokinetic theory of magnetoplasmas
A basic prerequisite for the investigation of relativistic astrophysical magnetoplasmas, occurring typically in the vicinity of massive stellar objects (black holes, neutron stars, active galactic nuclei, etc.), is the accurate description…
Recently, an increasing interest in astrophysical as well as laboratory plasmas has been manifested in reference to the existence of relativistic flows, related in turn to the production of intense electric fields in magnetized systems.…
Astrophysical plasmas in the surrounding of compact objects and subject to intense gravitational and electromagnetic fields are believed to give rise to relativistic regimes. Theoretical and observational evidence suggest that magnetized…
Radiation damping of the motion of charged particles in relativistic, optically thin plasmas is described within the framework of the covariant gyrokinetic theory. It involves description of the collisionless single-particle dynamics as…
The foundations of gyrokinetic theory are reviewed with an emphasis on the applications of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian methods used in the derivation of nonlinear gyrokinetic Vlasov-Maxwell equations. These reduced dynamical equations…
Gyrokinetic theory is a basis for treating magnetised plasma dynamics slower than particle gyrofrequencies where the scale of the background is larger than relevant gyroradii. The energy of field perturbations can be comparable to the…
We derive a gyrokinetic formalism which is very generally valid: the ordering allows both large inhomogeneities in plasma flow and magnetic field at long wavelength, like typical drift-kinetic theories, as well as fluctuations at the…
A gyrokinetic model is presented that can properly describe strong flows, large and small amplitude electromagnetic fluctuations occurring on scale lengths ranging from the electron Larmor radius to the equilibrium perpendicular pressure…
The kinetic description of relativistic plasmas in the presence of time-varying and spatially non-uniform electromagnetic fields is a fundamental theoretical issue both in astrophysics and plasma physics. This refers, in particular, to the…
Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence is encountered in a wide variety of astrophysical plasmas, including accretion disks, the solar wind, and the interstellar and intracluster medium. On small scales, this turbulence is often expected to…
The problem posed by the possible existence/non-existence of spatially non-symmetric kinetic equilibria has remained unsolved in plasma theory. For collisionless magnetized plasmas this involves the construction of stationary solutions of…
The linear gyrokinetic stability properties of magnetically confined electron-positron plasmas are investigated in the parameter regime most likely to be relevant for the first laboratory experiments involving such plasmas, where the…
The properties of magnetized plasmas are always investigated under the hypothesis that the relativistic inhomogeneities stemming from the fluid sources and from the geometry itself are sufficiently small to allow for a perturbative…
Gyrokinetics is a rich and rewarding playground to study some of the mysteries of modern physics. In this thesis I present work, motivated by the quest for fusion energy, which seeks to uncover some of the inner workings of turbulence in…
For a magnetised plasma in a straight magnetic guide field, we derive a set of four-dimensional kinetic equations, which can capture electromagnetic turbulence in the drift kinetic limit. To do so, we start from the gyrokinetic equations,…
The issue of finite magnetic compressibility in low-beta magnetised plasmas is considered within the gyrokinetic description. The gauge transformation method of Littlejohn is used to obtain a Lagrangian which contains this effect…
We obtain a covariant decomposition of the motion of a relativistic charged particle into parallel motion and perpendicular gyration, and transform to guiding-center coordinates using Lie transforms. The natural guiding-center Poisson…
Abridged. Kinetic plasma simulations are nowadays commonly used to study a wealth of non-linear behaviours and properties in laboratory and space plasmas. In particular, in high-energy physics and astrophysics, the plasma usually evolves in…
Nonlinear effects of the trapping of resonant particles by the combined action of the electric field and the magnetic mirror force is studied using a gyrokinetic description that includes the finite Larmor radius effects. A general…
We propose a novel derivation of the gyrokinetic field-particle Lagrangian for non-collisional ion-electron plasmas in a magnetic background with strong variations (maximal ordering). Our approach follows the two-step reduction process,…