Readings

There is no required textbook for this course, but the following books are recommended reference texts. Prof. Ian Hutchinson's 2003 lecture notes are also included on this page.

References

General

Elementary:

Buy at Amazon Chen, F. F. Introduction to Plasma Physics. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Springer, 1984. ISBN: 9780306413322.

See also:

Buy at Amazon Shohet, J. L. The Plasma State. San Diego, CA: Academic Press Inc., 1971. ISBN: 9780126405507.

Buy at Amazon Tanenbaum, B. S. Plasma Physics. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1967. ISBN: 9780070628120.

Intermediate:

Buy at Amazon Hazeltine, R. D., and F. L. Waelbroeck. The Framework of Plasma Physics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780813342139.

Buy at Amazon Goldston, R. J., and P. H. Rutherford. Introduction to Plasma Physics. Philadelphia, PA: IOP Publishing, 1995. ISBN: 9780750301831.

See also:

Buy at Amazon Clemmow, P. C., and J. P. Dougherty. Electrodynamics of Particles and Plasmas. New York, NY: Perseus Books, 1989. ISBN: 9780201515008.

Buy at Amazon Spitzer, Lyman, Jr. Physics of Fully Ionized Gases. 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 1962.

Buy at Amazon Schmidt, G. Physics of High Temperature Plasmas. 2nd ed. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1979. ISBN: 9780126266603. (Recommended for theory of particle orbits.)

Buy at Amazon Boyd, T. J. M., and J. J. Sanderson. Plasma Dynamics. New York, NY: Barnes and Noble, 1969. (Recommended for the statistical mechanics description of plasmas.)

Buy at Amazon Dendy, R., ed. Plasma Physics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780521484527. (Recommended for specific chapters on space and plasmas and on industrial plasmas.)

Advanced:

Buy at Amazon Krall, N. A., and A. W. Trivelpiece. Principles of Plasma Physics. Berkeley, CA: San Francisco Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780911302585.

See also:

Buy at Amazon Ichimaru, S. Principles of Plasma Physics - A Statistical Approach. Boston, MA: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1973. ISBN: 9780805387520.

MHD

Buy at Amazon J. P. Freidberg. Ideal Magnetohydrodynamics. New York, NY: Springer, 1987. ISBN: 9780306425127.

Plasma Waves

Buy at Amazon Stix, T. H. Waves in Plasmas. New York, NY: Springer, 1992. ISBN: 9780883188590.

Plasma Diagnostics

Buy at Amazon Huddlestone, R. H., and S. L. Leonard. Plasma Diagnostic Techniques. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1965.

Buy at Amazon Hutchinson, I. H. Principles of Plasma Diagnostics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780521675741.

Magnetic Confinement Fusion

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Rose, D. J., and M. Clark, Jr. Plasmas and Controlled Fusion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1961. ISBN: 9780262180061.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Miyamoto, K. Plasma Physics for Nuclear Fusion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989. ISBN: 9780262631174.

Buy at Amazon Wesson, J. Tokamaks. 3rd ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780198509226.

Plasma Astrophysics

Buy at Amazon Tajima, T., and K. Shibata. Plasma Astrophysics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780813339962.

Lecture Notes

Courtesy of Prof. Ian Hutchinson. Used with permission.

Course Notes

1. Introduction (PDF)

2. Motion of charged particles in fields (PDF)

3. Collisions in plasmas (PDF - 1.2 MB)

4. Fluid description of plasma (PDF)

5. Electromagnetic waves in plasmas (PDF - 1.0 MB)