Course syllabus

Course-PM

RRY085 Plasma physics with applications lp1 HT20 (7.5 hp)

Course is offered by the department of Space, Earth and Environment

Contact details

Examiner

Pär Strand, ED4410, par.strand@chalmers.se 

Teachers

Markus Held, ED4408, markus.held@chalmers.se  

Johan Anderson, ED4437, johan.anderson@chalmers.se

Pär Strand, ED4410, par.strand@chalmers.se 

Course purpose

The course aims at developing a physical understanding for the characteristic properties of plasmas, including how they can be created and where they appear. An important part of the course is to illustrate plasma physics concepts and phenomena by considering applications ranging from fusion energy generation to space physics and astrophysics.

Schedule

TimeEdit

Course literature

The course is largely based on the book Basic Plasma Physics, Theory and Applications by Anderson et al. that closely follows the Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion by F. F. Chen, but it is more detailed. It will be handed out free of charge during the first lecture and uploaded to the course website in PDF format. Additional material (lecture notes and slides, book references, etc.) will be handed out during the lectures and published online.

Course design

Lectures

Zoom-lectures Mondays 13:15 – 15:00  and Thursdays 10:00 – 11:45.
The zoom links are provided via canvas (cf. the menu-point "Zoom")

Content

• Introduction: Definition, generation, classification and occurrence of plasmas
• Plasma descriptions: Single particle motion, kinetic models, fluid models
• Magnetohydrodynamics: equilibrium, stability and waves
• Waves in plasmas and Landau damping
• Coulomb collisions and resistivity
• Diffusive transport
• Nuclear fusion
• Turbulent transport

Examination

The examination is two-fold:

1. For passing the course, compulsory hand-in exercises are needed to be solved. These will test the students' ability to solve plasma physics problems of various difficulty, and they will provide an opportunity for the student to prepare for problem solving at the final exam. The hand-ins are graded and contribute by 25% to the total grade. The hand-in exercises are uploaded Thursdays on canvas and the student's solutions must be provided at latest one week after at 24:00 via email to markus.held@chalmers.se. The sample solutions are discussed on the lectures afterwards and provided via canvas.
2. After the course there is a final oral exam, which contributes 75% to the total grade. At the exam each student has a 25-minute slot, which is used to assess the student's knowledge about the topics covered and ability to solve familiar plasma physics problems.

For passing the course, both the oral exam as well as the hand-in exercises must be passed separately!

Changes made since the last occasion

1. The teachers of the course have been changed.

2. The hand-ins are now graded and compulsory.

Learning objectives and syllabus

In order to pass the course, the student should be able to

• understand the basic, distinguishing features of plasmas and explain how the plasma state is quantitatively defined in terms of those properties.
• explain the differences between and similarities among the various plasma descriptions presented during the lectures, gain knowledge on what model to apply for a specific problem and roughly estimate their respective validity ranges.
• derive the motion of a single particle in a static and uniform electromagnetic field.
• understand and describe single particle motion in inhomogeneous, and/or temporally varying fields.
• understand the physics underlying Liouville's theorem and explain how it leads to the Vlasov and Boltzmann equations.
• briefly summarize how a fluid model may be constructed from kinetic theory.
• illustrate how to construct a one-fluid model, such as e.g. MHD, from a two-fluid description.
• understand how the MHD set of equations are used to determine equilibria and assess stability.
• analyze simple MHD equilibria and stability problems.
• understand the general mathematical approach used to describe linear plasma waves and apply those methods to new plasma settings.
• derive and interpret plasma wave dispersion relations for the plasma waves covered in the course.
• summarize the physics content of Landau damping.
• discuss how Coulomb collisions can lead to a diffusive transport, and explain the properties of such collisional transport parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field in a magnetized plasma. Explain the concept of ambipolarity.
• understand the concept of plasma resistivity, and use it to discuss Ohmic heating and electron runaway
• discuss fusion reactions semi-classically in terms of concepts such as cross section, Coulomb and nuclear potentials, energy balance etc.
• discuss and contrast various paths towards controlled fusion energy on Earth.
• understand the importance of the fusion triple product and derive the reaction power balance condition.
• describe some typical magnetic confinement devices in terms of geometry, magnetic field structure, stability and technology (e.g. heating and diagnostic systems).

Study plan

Examination form

See above at Course design