In this paper we revisit the paradigm of space science turbulent dissipation traditionally considered as myth (Coroniti, Space Sci. Rev., vol. 42, 1985, pp. 399–410). We demonstrate that due to approach introduced by Pitaevskii (Sov. J. Expl Theor. Phys., vol. 44, 1963, pp. 969–979; (in Russian)) (the effect of a finite Larmor radius on a classical collision integral) dissipation induced by effective interaction with microturbulence produces a significant effect on plasma dynamics, especially in the vicinity of the reconnection region. We estimate the multiplication factor of collision frequency in the collision integral for short wavelength perturbations. For waves propagating transverse to the background magnetic field, this factor is approximately $({\it\rho}_{e}k_{x})^{2}$ with ${\it\rho}_{e}$ an electron gyroradius and where $k_{x}$ is a transverse wavenumber. We consider recent spacecraft observations in the Earth’s magnetotail reconnection region to the estimate possible impact of this multiplication factor. For small-scale reconnection regions this factor can significantly increase the effective collision frequency produced both by lower-hybrid drift turbulence and by kinetic Alfvén waves. We discuss the possibility that the Pitaevskii’s effect may be responsible for the excitation of a resistive electron tearing mode in thin current sheets formed in the outflow region of the primary X-line.

We report on the experimental demonstration of a technique to generate steep density gradients in gas-jet targets of interest to laser–plasma ion acceleration. By using an intentional low-energy prepulse, we generated a hydrodynamic blast wave in the gas to shape the target prior to the arrival of an intense CO$_{2}$ (${\it\lambda}\approx 10~{\rm\mu}\text{m}$) drive pulse. This technique has been recently shown to facilitate the generation of ion beams by shockwave acceleration (Tresca et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 115 (9), 2015, 094802). Here, we discuss and introduce a model to understand the generation of these blast waves and discuss in depth the experimental realisation of the technique, supported by hydrodynamics simulations. With appropriate prepulse energy and timing, this blast wave can generate steepened density gradients as short as $l\approx 20~{\rm\mu}\text{m}$ ($1/e$), opening up new possibilities for laser–plasma studies with near-critical gaseous targets.

The influence of quantum tunnelling and shielding on the resonant electron transfer process in strongly coupled plasmas is investigated. The screened atomic states and energy eigenvalues are employed to obtain the resonant electron transfer cross-section in strongly coupled plasmas. It is found that the classical resonant electron transfer cross-section increases with an increase of the ion-sphere radius. However, the energy-dependent quantum tunnelling resonant electron transfer cross-section is shown to decrease with increasing ion-sphere radius. It is demonstrated that an increase of the nuclear charge decreases the screening effect on the electron transfer cross-section while the quantum tunnelling effect enhances the resonant electron transfer cross-section in strongly coupled plasmas. In addition, it is shown that the effect of quantum tunnelling on the resonant electron transfer process decreases when both the collision energy and ion-sphere radius increase. The variation of shielding effect on the resonant electron transfer process in strongly coupled plasmas is also discussed.

Using a numerical code based on guiding centre drift equations, collisionless high energy particle losses, and in particular ${\it\alpha}$-particle losses, are studied for a number of stellarator configurations in the presence of magnetic islands caused by resonant perturbations of magnetic surfaces. Standard stellarator configurations, as well as an optimized quasi-helically symmetric stellarator, are used in this study. It is found that the role of islands in collisionless ${\it\alpha}$-particle losses is practically negligible for standard stellarators, however, for optimized stellarators, islands can have a negative impact.

V. D. Shafranov was a key person in the fusion program. The paper presents the recollections of one of his close colleagues about Shafranov’s impact on the early days of tokamak research.

Analytic solutions are presented for the orbit of a charged particle in the combination of a uniform axial magnetic field and parabolic electrostatic potential. These trajectories are shown to correspond to the sum of two individually rotating vectors with one vector rotating at a constant fast frequency and the other rotating in the same sense but with a constant slow frequency. These solutions are related to Penning trap orbits and to stochastic orbits. If the lengths of the two rotating vectors are identical, the particle has zero canonical angular momentum in which case the particle orbit will traverse the origin. If the potential has an inverse dependence on distance from the source of the potential, the particle can impact the source. Axis-encircling orbits are where the length of the vector associated with the fast frequency is longer than the vector associated with the slow frequency. Non-axis-encircling orbits are the other way around.

The fundamentals of stereoscopy and their application to dusty plasmas are described. It is shown that stereoscopic methods allow us to measure the three-dimensional particle positions and trajectories with high spatial and temporal resolution. The underlying technical implications are presented and requirements and limitations are discussed. The stereoscopic method is demonstrated for dust particles in dust-density waves under microgravity conditions.

A particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation study of the charging processes of spherical dust grains in a magnetized plasma environment is presented. Different magnetic field strengths with corresponding electron/ion gyration radii of smaller, the same or larger size than the grain radius and the plasma Debye length are examined. The magnetized plasma is created by overlapping the simulation box with a homogeneous, constant magnetic field. The charging currents are significantly reduced in the presence of a magnetic field, resulting in a more negative grain floating potential. Indeed, the most probable electron gyration radius is always smaller than that of ions in a Maxwellian plasma: however, it is demonstrated that the situation of simultaneous magnetized electron but an unmagnetized ion charging current never exists. The simulation results do not fit with a modified orbital motion limited (OML) theory approach for this situation, since the ion current is significantly reduced due to the increase of the gyration radius in the potential field of the dust grain. For very small gyration radii, the simulation results are in good agreement with a modified OML approach for both magnetized electron and ion charging currents.

Formation of the streamer zone of a leader is an outstanding problem in the physics of electric discharges which is relevant to laboratory leaders, as well as to the leaders formed by lightning. Despite substantial progress in the theoretical understanding of this complicated phenomenon, significant puzzles, such as the low propagation velocity of a leader compared to the fast streamers, remain. The objective of this paper is to present 2-D plasma simulations of the formation and propagation of the streamer zone of a leader. In these simulations we will generate a group of streamers that propagate in a discharge gap while interacting with each other. It is shown that interaction between the streamers significantly reduces their propagation velocity. This explains why the leader, which consists of many streamers, is much slower than a single streamer formed in the same discharge gap. It is shown that the mean velocity suppression of the group of streamers is determined by the inter-streamer distance. The critical value of the packing factor of the streamers at which the interactions between them can be neglected, and thus the discussed process can be treated as caused by a single streamer, is obtained.

In this paper, an Airy-like electron plasma wave is investigated in an unmagnetized collisionless plasma consisting of inertial electrons and static ions. Just like the optical Airy beam, the Airy-like electron plasma wave also has two interesting propagation characteristics: it has transverse acceleration and is diffraction-free, which display that the Airy-like electron plasma wave propagates along a curved trajectory and retains the basic structure for longer distances in the propagation direction, respectively. We give a numerical simulation for the electrostatic potential of the Airy-like electron plasma wave and show that, with the increase of the propagation distance, the electrostatic potential decreases in the propagation direction but increases in the transverse direction.

The modulational instability of dust-ion acoustic (DIA) waves in an unmagnetized dusty plasma is investigated in the presence of weak dissipations arising due to the low rates (compared to the ion oscillation frequency) of ionization recombination and ion loss. Based on the multiple space and time scales perturbation, a new modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation governing the evolution of modulated DIA waves is derived with a linear damping term. It is shown that the combined action of all dissipative mechanisms due to collisions between particles reveals the permitted maximum time for the occurrence of the modulational instability. The influence on the modulational instability regions of relevant physical parameters such as ion temperature, dust concentration, ionization, recombination and ion loss is numerically examined. It is also found that the recombination frequency controls the instability growth rate, whereas recombination and ion loss make the instability regions wider.

The output power and the temperature profile of a copper vapour laser were investigated versus frequency with various kinds of back mirror in its resonator cavity. A semi-experimental method was used for measuring the plasma temperature and obtaining the temperature profile with various back mirrors. The obtained plasma temperature through this method has good agreement with the operational temperature of the laser.

Two-fluid quantum magnetohydrodynamic (QMHD) equations are employed to investigate linear and nonlinear properties of the magnetosonic waves in a semi-relativistic dense plasma accounting for degenerate relativistic electrons. In the linear analysis, a plane wave solution is used to derive the dispersion relation of magnetosonic waves, which is significantly modified due to relativistic degenerate electrons. However, for a nonlinear investigation of solitary and shock waves, we employ the reductive perturbation technique for the derivation of Korteweg–de Vries (KdV) and Korteweg–de Vries Burger (KdVB) equations, admitting nonlinear wave solutions. Numerically, it is shown that the wave frequency decreases to attain a lowest possible value at a certain critical number density $N_{c}^{(0)}$, and then increases beyond $N_{c}^{(0)}$ as the plasma number density increases. Moreover, the relativistic electrons and associated pressure degeneracy lead to a reduction in the spatial extents of the magnetosonic waves and a strengthening of the shock amplitude. The results might be important for understanding the linear and nonlinear magnetosonic excitations in dense astrophysical plasmas, such as in white dwarfs, magnetars and neutron stars, etc., where relativistic degenerate electrons are present.

Particle-based simulations, such as in particle-in-cell (PIC) codes, are widely used in plasma physics research. The analysis of particle energy transfers, as described by the second moment of the Boltzmann equation, is often necessary within these simulations. We present computationally efficient, analytically derived equations for evaluating collisional energy transfer terms from simulations using discrete particles. The equations are expressed as a sum over the properties of the discrete particles.

The generation of nonlinear electrostatic solitary waves (ESWs) is explored in a magnetized four component two-temperature electron–positron plasma. Fluid theory is used to derive a set of nonlinear equations for the ESWs, which propagate obliquely to an external magnetic field. The electric field structures are examined for various plasma parameters and are shown to yield sinusoidal, sawtooth and bipolar waveforms. It is found that an increase in the densities of the electrons and positrons strengthen the nonlinearity while the periodicity and nonlinearity of the wave increases as the cool-to-hot temperature ratio increases. Our results could be useful in understanding nonlinear propagation of waves in astrophysical environments and related laboratory experiments.

The Sagdeev potential method is employed to compute the width of the ion-acoustic solitary wave propagated in a dusty plasma containing three components (dust–ion–electron). The results indicate that the width is a continuous function over the allowable ranges of plasma parameters. The complexity of the resulting equations is an obstacle to the expression of the width function in an explicit form in terms of the parameters. Thus, computer algebra is needed to plot the graph of the width function versus the parameters, which helps us to understand the width changes as the parameters change.

The paper presents a theoretical work on the dynamics of Coulomb explosion for spherical nanoplasmas composed by two different ion species. Particular attention has been dedicated to study the energy spectra of the ions with the larger charge-to-mass ratio. The connection between the formation of shock shells and the energy spread of the ions has been the object of a detailed analysis, showing that under particular conditions the width of the asymptotic energy spectrum tends to become very narrow, which leads to a multi-valued ion phase space. The conditions to generate a quasi-monoenergetic ion spectrum have been rigorously demonstrated and verified by numerical simulations using a technique that, exploiting the spherical symmetry of the problem, allows one to obtain very accurate and precise results.

Using the transfer matrix method, absorbing properties of electromagnetic waves in one-dimensional plasma photonic crystals are proposed. Compared with the absorption of bulk plasma, more absorbing bands have been found in one-dimensional plasma photonic crystals, and the first absorbing band appears below the plasma frequency. These absorbing bands can be controlled by varying structure parameters, plasma parameters and the incident angle. Results show that the periodic number and collision frequency only control the absorbing magnitude. Plasma frequency, plasma thickness and incident angle affect both the absorbing magnitude and locations. Increasing the dielectric constant of the dielectric makes more absorbing bands appear. These features of one-dimensional plasma photonic crystals would have potential applications in tunable millimetre absorbers.