Plasma Definition and 681 Threads

Hi! First time poster here, looking for some advice on how to optimize my CV for the title-stated goal. By “top-tier”, I have the big three of Princeton, MIT, and Columbia in mind. Those schools are the target because while I really love experimental work, I want a PhD that will give me the...

I am a plasma physicist in training and I am looking for book recommendations for plasma instabilities. If there is one book that I should buy, what is it? What is the bible for plasma instabilities?

I have an unusual situation because my course is too restrictive: I need to take a module called 'Solar magnetohydrodynamics' in the 4th year. For that module, I was told it would be 'benefitial' to also take a module called 'Plasma physics and fusion' this year. This particular module last...

Hello I have browsed this forum for quite a long time but never made an account I am building a microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition chamber and figure physics help might be helpful.:wink:

Imagine you have a proton beam with sufficient speed say Xc to overcome the Coulomb Barrier for the element in use. The beam collides with a cloud of that element with density (rho) and thickness (l). Obviously you wouldn't achieve 100% fusion and if the cloud is dense enough the beam will...

Hi I built pig ion source, the gas I'm using hydrogen gas to create negative ion . You can see ion source here: My question is why in high vacuum more than 10×3 mmpa the plasma disappear even is if gas is supplied? Thanks

I remember one of my favorite parts of the original Star Wars movie was when Luke, Leia, Chewie and Han jump into the trash compactor. Han tries to blast his way out and the blaster bolt ricochets off the walls of the compactor until it eventually hits a piece of garbage. Luke screams “WILL YOU...

Is the cause of the lighting due to the impact of electrons with the nucleus

why can not simply explode an atomic bomb inside a recint with plasma and hydrogen so the temperature and power generated will make the fusion working

Let us assume a continuous flow of gas that can be ionized between the electrodes where an electric discharge is generated. According to the principle of conservation of energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transformed from one form to another with losses, e.g. in the...

I tried to understand the equation and plug in the numbers, but I just don't get how that is supposed to give us a ratio (with no units!), when it only has the temperature/energy to the power of 3/2 and that multiplied by m^3. Other units (in the exponent of e) cancel each other out. Thank you.

Lets say that i have i mole of tungsten atoms. They are all ionized, only one electron is removed from each atom. If i accelerate this mole of tungsten atoms through one electron volt, i would get 96.48 kj. If the mole of tungsten was doubly ionized, two electrons removed from each atom, and...

Hi! everyone. I'm looking to plot potential of quasi-neutral plasma as a function of length. I know that plasma potential will drop at front of the wall from particle acceleration by electric field. I assume plasma is an electrostatic and cold (less collision). However, I'm trying to plot plasma...

Why quarks numbers of the three colors where exactly equal in the initial quarks-gluons plasma? Seeing the Avogadro number, even a 10E-20 additional excess in one color should give a lot of free quark tracks in bubble chamber.

Let me start this off with saying I am just a uneducated idiot, But after reading about Zap Energies sheared flow pinch reactor I was wondering if you could use a similar concept in a neutral beam injector? Like could you first compress and heat the plasma inside of a NBI using a pinch, then...

I was reading up on a theoretical engine employing the following, “Mercury plasma pressurized at 250k atmospheres, at a temperature of 150 degrees kelvin (-123° C), and swirled within its accelerator to 50k RPM.” Does pressurizing mercury so much somehow allow a plasma to form at such sub-zero...

Plasma instability may be a solution for magnetic nozzle plasma thrusters https://phys.org/news/2022-12-plasma-instability-solution-magnetic-nozzle.html Kazunori Takahashi (Tohoku University), Christine Charles (ANU, Canberra, AU) & Rod W. Boswell (Tohoku University) Wave-driven electron...

I read something about accelerators using nanotubes. I am a little concerned about the design mentioned in the "High Density with Perpendicular Carbon Nanotubes" part of this paper(https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8060216). Can wakefield acceleration be done in an electron field? Or maybe I...

Is it possible to keep the plasma ionized almost indefinitely. No additional heating is required.

I read a paper about coherent surface plasmon amplification by free electron pumping in an article a few days ago. It seems to work as some kind of free electron laser-like light source, and I wonder how high the energy of photons can go in this way. Also I read in another paper about...

Im wondering if plasma is possible to be separated into a positive nucleus and negative electrons and contained within a magnetic bottle ? If possible, what is the most efficient method of achieving it ?

In its path to the exit it is, disassociated, and still trapped in this enclosure with only a path forward. So now it is in two forms of gas, so the pressure of the expansion in the enclosed enclosure and now traveling at high speed towards the exit, and most likely ionized. It is then subjected...

I put the net charge density ##\rho_q = e\delta## so that ##\nabla \cdot \mathbf{E} = e\delta / \epsilon_0##, then I tried Maxwell IV:\begin{align*} \dot{\mathbf{E}} + c^2 \mu_0 \mathbf{J} &= 0 \overset{\mathrm{div}}{\implies} e\dot{\delta} + \nabla \cdot \mathbf{J} = 0 \end{align*}but this...

A Ion source is a device that allows creating ion beams (e.g. argon ions) and to project them outside the device, for example to be further processed by a particle accelerator, or to irradiate materials or biological tissues etc. Now, suppose the ion beam is coupled with an EM wave, especially...

What is Electromagnetic Cross Section? (shock section) Hello, I have a question regarding the manufacturing process of electronic components in the case of the silicon deposition and corrosion process. My biggest doubt is the behavior of the plasma interacting in the reactor, I don't know if...

Let me start off with saying I am just a idiot with a high school level education (and a learning disability ). But i have a idea of using a diverter with a plasma actuator equiped, to generate a stream of negatively charged electrons to attract spent alpha particles and impurities. Tuned to...

Hi, I'm trying to understand what determines whether a plasma will be collisionless or collisional. I understand that a diffuse plasma with large mean free path will be collisionless but I don't really understand it from an electromagnetic point of view

Say we look at a spherical region of the sun where energy is mainly transported by radiation. Say this happens between some particular radius R and R + dr. Let the temperature at R be giving by T(r). At this particular radius let the gravitational acceleration be a reasonably well know function...

Hi everyone Explanations of diffusion that I've seen mention that the polarity of phospholipid layer stops ions from diffusing without specifying how. I'm assuming that ions with the same polarity as the membrane will be repelled. Would it be correct to say that ions with the opposite...

Summary:: I am learning particle-in-cell (PIC) python 3X code. PIC currently represents one of the most important plasma simulation tools. It is particularly suited to the study of kinetic or non-Maxwellian effects. I am learning particle-in-cell (PIC) python code. PIC currently represents one...

Note: for some reason frequency on this lecture is indicated by \omega. I wanted to calculate the reflectance using one of these equations that were given to us during the lecture: R=1 where \omega < \omega_p...

In a plasma device, the plasma is generated by applying high voltage in a gas. What are the specifications for the power supply producing such plasma? The output must be AC or DC? Pulsed or not? What are the current, voltage, etc...?

I really can't get my head around the concept of pulsed plasma thruster. All I know now is that it utilizes ##\vec F=q \dot {\vec r}\times \vec B##. Could someone explain the mechanism to me, please? Thanks!

I'm curious what are those lines? Which one are the quark gluon plasma?

This would appear to be a straightforward algebra problem, but it just doesn't pass the smell test for me. The issue might be with the number of electrons per cubic meter, as that was calculated in a previous problem, so let me know if that number seems wrong. My plasma frequency (##\nu##) not...

Please be kind to help. How is an electric field formed due to toroidal magnetic field? How does the introduction of a poloidal magnetic field confine the plasma? Please answer in the context of Nuclear Fusion Reactor (tokamak).

I am only asking about part (b)(i) and (b)(ii). Below is the explanation for (b)(i). What is going on in the above? I understand up till the 3rd line, about the left/right hand circular motion. What is the "upward motion" the solution mentioned? Is it suggesting that ions are moving...

I want to perform an experiment to show that magnetic fields can control plasma. (Can even be a slight repulsion) Please Suggest one. I have no idea where I can obtain plasma - I have access to candle flame (though it's not a proper plasma) & fluorescent lights. I have a permanent magnet (not a...

This has persistently bugged me in my intro plasma course. They keep using ##\gamma = 3## aka ##N_d = 1## (where ##N_d## is the number of degrees of freedom in the molecule) as an approximation. See for example, the Bohm-Gross dispersion curve. I can tell you from deriving this that the factor...

Are the effects luminous we see in plasma ball come from electron or ions ? Or the two ?

Could you point me to interesting videos about plasma ball?

Hi there! I wanted to know if i can leave the Plasm Ball turned on all night in my room without any problem. Thanks in advance!

The idea itself is to create in a toroidal chamber a spiral-shaped plasma filament with a singularity in the form of a ring of rotating plasma, in which the concentration of ions and the duration of nuclear interaction increase during electrostatic compression. For this, it is proposed to wind a...

I imagine an empty region of space, in between stars, or even galaxies. This void is filled only with a uniform distribution of hydrogen particles. I won't specify how dense this field is, but I would like to know which is more transparent to photons, a gas of hydrogen atoms, hydrogen...

I’m having A bit of confusion regarding this. In a plasma by turning on an electric field ,wouldn’t this cause an oscillation of the electrons about the ions,effectively a oscillating dipole thus inducing a magnetic field, by amperes law? My text (plasma physics by F.Chen )has curlE =0 I’m not...

I really enjoy learning strange facts and while i would never assume to be a "Smart" person i do have the power to ask. So with a plasma fusion reactor like the tokamak or any other they have a viewing window to see the plasma bound in the toroidal magnetic field so what would happen if you...

Hi, I am looking at videos of spark gaps and see that there are different colors of plasma. I really should've been a physicist because this may be fundamental, but I'm wondering what the different colors mean? I have seen purple and white. My guess is that white is a higher energy discharge...

Hi friends, Let me brief, long story short.. I am working on an LG plasma TV model 42PQ30R. The fault is no display. The tv is turning on, the blue led is working, however there is no standby (red light), tv automatically going in run mode (i.e blue led) Note: sometimes gets off automatically...

What is "plasma"? How is a fluid measured to be either a gas or a plasma? Mercury boils at 359 Celsius (632 Kelvin). Mercury vapour is poorly conductive, little ionized (incidentally - monoatomic) and generally defined as a gas. However, tungsten boils at 5930 C (6203 K). Photosphere of Sun...

Hi everyone, I am trying to figure out the following question: What is the typical mass of the plasma (in typical working configuration) in current nuclear fusion reactor designs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER: "...plasma volume of 840 cubic meters..." So all I need is the plasma density...