Vlasov Equation - Difficulties of The Standard Kinetic Approach

Difficulties of The Standard Kinetic Approach

First, Vlasov argues that the standard kinetic approach based on the Boltzmann equation has difficulties when applied to a description of the plasma with long-range Coulomb interaction. He mentions the following problems arising when applying the kinetic theory based on pair collisions to plasma dynamics:

  1. Theory of pair collisions disagree with the discovery by Rayleigh, Irving Langmuir and Lewi Tonks of natural vibrations in electron plasma.
  2. Theory of pair collisions formally not applicable to Coulomb interaction due to the divergence of the kinetic terms.
  3. Theory of pair collisions cannot explain experiments by Harrison Merrill and Harold Webb on anomalous electron scattering in gaseous plasma.

Vlasov suggests that these difficulties originate from the long-range character of Coulomb interaction. He starts with the collisionless Boltzmann equation (sometimes anachronistically called the Vlasov equation in this context),

and adapted it to the case of a plasma, leading to the systems of equations shown below.

Read more about this topic:  Vlasov Equation

Famous quotes containing the words difficulties of, difficulties, standard, kinetic and/or approach:

    “So far as my experience goes, travelers generally exaggerate the difficulties of the way. Like most evil, the difficulty is imaginary; for what’s the hurry?”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “So far as my experience goes, travelers generally exaggerate the difficulties of the way. Like most evil, the difficulty is imaginary; for what’s the hurry?”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “... the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God’s will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed.”
    —Maya Angelou (b. 1928)

    “The poem has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills it to have. It has kinetic force, it sets in motion ... [ellipsis in source] elements in the reader that would otherwise be stagnant.”
    —Denise Levertov (b. 1923)

    “Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit herself to them.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)