Plasma Oscillation

Plasma Oscillation

Plasma oscillations, also known as "Langmuir waves" (after Irving Langmuir), are rapid oscillations of the electron density in conducting media such as plasmas or metals. The oscillations can be described as an instability in the dielectric function of a free electron gas. The frequency only depends weakly on the wavelength. The quasiparticle resulting from the quantization of these oscillations is the plasmon.

Langmuir waves were discovered by American physicists Irving Langmuir and Lewi Tonks in the 1920s. They are parallel in form to Jeans instability waves, which are caused by gravitational instabilities in a static medium.

Read more about Plasma Oscillation:  Explanation

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