Single-Particle Motions

Abstract

What makes plasmas particularly difficult to analyze is the fact that the densities fall in an intermediate range. Fluids like water are so dense that the motions of individual molecules do not have to be considered. Collisions dominate, and the simple equations of ordinary fluid dynamics suffice. At the other extreme in very low-density devices like the alternating-gradient synchrotron, only single-particle trajectories need be considered; collective effects are often unimportant. Plasmas behave sometimes like fluids, and sometimes like a collection of individual particles. The first step in learning how to deal with this schizophrenic personality is to understand how single particles behave in electric and magnetic fields. This chapter differs from succeeding ones in that the E and B fields are assumed to be prescribed and not affected by the charged particles.

The original version of this chapter was revised. An erratum to this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22309-4_11