We investigate analytically and numerically the semi-collisional regime of the plasmoid instability, defined by the inequality $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}_{\text{SP}}\gg \unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}_{s}\gg \unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}_{\text{in}}$, where $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}_{\text{SP}}$ is the width of a Sweet–Parker current sheet, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}_{s}$ is the ion sound Larmor radius and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}_{\text{in}}$ is the width of the boundary layer that arises in the plasmoid instability analysis. Theoretically, this regime is predicted to exist if the Lundquist number $S$ and the length of the current sheet $L$ are such that $(L/\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}_{s})^{14/9}<S<(L/\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}_{s})^{2}$ (for a sinusoidal-like magnetic configuration; for a Harris-type sheet the lower bound is replaced with $(L/\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}_{s})^{8/5}$). These bounds are validated numerically by means of simulations using a reduced gyrokinetic model (Zocco & Schekochihin, Phys. Plasmas, vol. 18 (10), 2011, 102309) conducted with the code Viriato. Importantly, this regime is conjectured to allow for plasmoid formation at relatively low, experimentally accessible, values of the Lundquist number. Our simulations obtain plasmoid instability at values of $S$ as low as ${\sim}250$. The simulations do not prescribe a Sweet–Parker sheet; rather, one is formed self-consistently during the nonlinear evolution of the initial tearing mode configuration. This proves that this regime of the plasmoid instability is realizable, at least at the relatively low values of the Lundquist number that are accessible to current dedicated experiments.

The component of the neoclassical electrostatic potential that is non-constant on the magnetic surface, that we denote by $\tilde{\unicode[STIX]{x1D711}}$, can affect radial transport of highly charged impurities, and this has motivated its inclusion in some modern neoclassical codes. The number of neoclassical simulations in which $\tilde{\unicode[STIX]{x1D711}}$ is calculated is still scarce, partly because they are usually demanding in terms of computational resources, especially at low collisionality. In this paper the size, the scaling with collisionality and with aspect ratio and the structure of $\tilde{\unicode[STIX]{x1D711}}$ on the magnetic surface are analytically derived in the $1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D708}$, $\sqrt{\unicode[STIX]{x1D708}}$ and superbanana-plateau regimes of stellarators close to omnigeneity; i.e. stellarators that have been optimized for neoclassical transport. It is found that the largest $\tilde{\unicode[STIX]{x1D711}}$ that the neoclassical equations admit scales linearly with the inverse aspect ratio and with the size of the deviation from omnigeneity. Using a model for a perturbed omnigenous configuration, the analytical results are verified and illustrated with calculations by the code KNOSOS. The techniques, results and numerical tools employed in this paper can be applied to neoclassical transport problems in tokamaks with broken axisymmetry.

We examine the properties of linear electrostatic waves in unmagnetised quantum and classical plasmas consisting of one or two populations of electrons with analytically tractable distribution functions in the presence of a stationary neutralising ion background. Beginning with the kinetic quantum plasma longitudinal susceptibility, we assess the effects due to increasing complexity of the background distribution function. Firstly, we analyse dispersion and Landau damping in one-component plasmas and consider distribution functions with a variety of analytical properties: the Dirac delta function, the Cauchy profile with two complex first-order poles, the squared Cauchy profile with two second-order poles and the inverse-quartic profile with four first-order poles; we also briefly discuss the non-meromorphic totally and arbitrarily degenerate Fermi–Dirac distribution. In order to study electrostatic instabilities, we then turn to plasmas with two populations of electrons streaming relative to each other in two cases: a symmetric case of two counter-streaming identical populations and a bump-on-tail case with a primary population and a delta-function beam. We obtain the corresponding linear kinetic dispersion relations and evaluate the properties of instabilities when the electron distribution functions are of the delta function, Cauchy, squared Cauchy or inverse-quartic types. In agreement with other studies, we find that in general quantum effects reduce the range of wavelengths for unstable modes at long wavelengths. We also find a second window of instability at shorter wavelengths and elucidate its nature as being due to quantum recoil. We note the possible implications for studies of laboratory and astrophysical quantum plasmas.

A heat flux in a high-$\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ plasma with low collisionality triggers the whistler instability. Quasilinear theory predicts saturation of the instability in a marginal state characterized by a heat flux that is fully controlled by electron scattering off magnetic perturbations. This marginal heat flux does not depend on the temperature gradient and scales as $1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$. We confirm this theoretical prediction by performing numerical particle-in-cell simulations of the instability. We further calculate the saturation level of magnetic perturbations and the electron scattering rate as functions of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ and the temperature gradient to identify the saturation mechanism as quasilinear. Suppression of the heat flux is caused by oblique whistlers with magnetic-energy density distributed over a wide range of propagation angles. This result can be applied to high-$\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ astrophysical plasmas, such as the intracluster medium, where thermal conduction at sharp temperature gradients along magnetic-field lines can be significantly suppressed. We provide a convenient expression for the amount of suppression of the heat flux relative to the classical Spitzer value as a function of the temperature gradient and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$. For a turbulent plasma, the additional independent suppression by the mirror instability is capable of producing large total suppression factors (several tens in galaxy clusters) in regions with strong temperature gradients.

Sweet–Parker current sheets in high Lundquist number plasmas are unstable to tearing, suggesting they will not form in physical systems. Understanding magnetic reconnection thus requires study of the stability of a current sheet as it forms. Formation can occur due to sheared, sub-Alfvénic incompressible flows which narrow the sheet. Standard tearing theory (Furth et al. Phys. Fluids, vol. 6 (4), 1963, pp. 459–484, Rutherford, Phys. Fluids, vol. 16 (11), 1973, pp. 1903–1908, Coppi et al. Fizika Plazmy, vol. 2, 1976, pp. 961–966) is not immediately applicable to such forming sheets for two reasons: first, because the flow introduces terms not present in the standard calculation; second, because the changing equilibrium introduces time dependence to terms which are constant in the standard calculation, complicating the formulation of an eigenvalue problem. This paper adapts standard tearing mode analysis to confront these challenges. In an initial phase when any perturbations are primarily governed by ideal magnetohydrodynamics, a coordinate transformation reveals that the flow compresses and stretches perturbations. A multiple scale formulation describes how linear tearing mode theory (Furth et al. Phys. Fluids, vol. 6 (4), 1963, pp. 459–484, Coppi et al. Fizika Plazmy, vol. 2, 1976, pp. 961–966) can be applied to an equilibrium changing under flow, showing that the flow affects the separable exponential growth only implicitly, by making the standard scalings time dependent. In the nonlinear Rutherford stage, the coordinate transformation shows that standard theory can be adapted by adding to the stationary rates time dependence and an additional term due to the strengthening equilibrium magnetic field. Overall, this understanding supports the use of flow-free scalings with slight modifications to study tearing in a forming sheet.

With the advent of high power lasers, new opportunities have opened up for simulating astrophysical processes in the laboratory. We show that second-order Fermi acceleration can be directly investigated at the National Ignition Facility, Livermore. This requires measuring the momentum-space diffusion of 3 MeV protons produced within a turbulent plasma generated by a laser. Treating Fermi acceleration as a biased diffusion process, we show analytically that a measurable broadening of the initial proton distribution is then expected for particles exiting the plasma.

High-$Z$ impurities in magnetic-confinement devices are prone to develop density variations on the flux surface, which can significantly affect their transport. In this paper, we generalize earlier analytic stellarator calculations of the neoclassical radial impurity flux in the mixed-collisionality regime (collisional impurities and low-collisionality bulk ions) to include the effect of such flux-surface variations. We find that only in the homogeneous density case is the transport of highly collisional impurities (in the Pfirsch–Schlüter regime) independent of the radial electric field. We study these effects for a Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) vacuum field, with simple analytic models for the potential perturbation, under the assumption that the impurity density is given by a Boltzmann response to a perturbed potential. In the W7-X case studied, we find that larger amplitude potential perturbations cause the radial electric field to dominate the transport of the impurities. In addition, we find that classical impurity transport can be larger than the neoclassical transport in W7-X.

A theory of the Bennett pinch is presented for the case of non-relativistic electrons. In this way the basic physics of the phenomenon can be clearly demonstrated. The magnetic force acting on the electrons is transmitted to the positive ions via an electrostatic field.

The gyrokinetic stability of electron–positron plasmas contaminated by an ion (proton) admixture is studied in a slab geometry. The appropriate dispersion relation is derived and solved. Stable K-modes, the universal instability, the ion-temperature-gradient-driven instability, the electron-temperature-gradient-driven instability and the shear Alfvén wave are considered. It is found that the contaminated plasma remains stable if the contamination degree is below some threshold and that the shear Alfvén wave can be present in a contaminated plasma in cases where it is absent without ion contamination.

Observational evidence in space and astrophysical plasmas with a long collisional mean free path suggests that more massive charged particles may be preferentially heated. One possible mechanism for this is the turbulent cascade of energy from injection to dissipation scales, where the energy is converted to heat. Here we consider a simple system consisting of a magnetized plasma slab of electrons and a single ion species with a cross-field density gradient. We show that such a system is subject to an electron drift wave instability, known as the universal instability, which is stabilized only when the electron and ion thermal speeds are equal. For unequal thermal speeds, we find from quasilinear analysis and nonlinear simulations that the instability gives rise to turbulent energy exchange between ions and electrons that acts to equalize the thermal speeds. Consequently, this turbulent heating tends to equalize the component temperatures of pair plasmas and to heat ions to much higher temperatures than electrons for conventional mass-ratio plasmas.

Grounded on the premise that dust particles are charged hard balls, the analysis in Davletov et al. (Contrib. Plasma Phys., vol. 56, 2016, 308) provides an original pseudopotential model of intergrain interaction in complex (dusty) plasmas. This accurate model is engaged herein to consistently treat the finite-size effects from the process of dust particle charging to determination of the thermodynamic quantities and the dust-acoustic wave dispersion in the strongly coupled regime. The orbital motion limited approximation is adopted to evaluate an electric charge of dust grains immersed in a neutralizing background of the buffer plasma. To account for finite dimensions of dust particles, the radial distribution function is calculated within the reference hypernetted-chain (RHNC) approximation to demonstrate a well-pronounced short-range order formation at rather large values of the coupling parameter and the packing fraction. The evaluated excess pressure of the dust component is compared to the available theoretical approaches and the simulation data and is then used to predict the dust-acoustic wave (DAW) dispersion in the strongly coupled regime under the assumption that the dust particles charge varies in the course of propagation. In contrast to many previous investigations, it is demonstrated for the first time ever that for DAWs the charge variation of dust particles should necessarily be taken into account while evaluating the dust isothermal compressibility.

In contrast to hydrodynamic vortices, vortices in a plasma contain an electric current circulating around the centre of the vortex, which generates a magnetic field localized inside. Using computer simulations, we demonstrate that the magnetic field associated with the vortex gives rise to a mechanism of dissipation of the vortex pair in a collisionless plasma, leading to fast annihilation of the magnetic field with its energy transforming into the energy of fast electrons, secondary vortices and plasma waves. Two major contributors to the energy damping of a double vortex system, namely, magnetic field annihilation and secondary vortex formation, are regulated by the size of the vortex with respect to the electron skin depth, which scales with the electron $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}$ factor, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}_{e}$, as $R/d_{e}\propto \unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}_{e}^{1/2}$. Magnetic field annihilation appears to be dominant in mildly relativistic vortices, while for the ultrarelativistic case, secondary vortex formation is the main channel for damping of the initial double vortex system.

Recent efforts to include kinetic effects in fluid simulations of plasmas have been very promising. Concerning collisionless magnetic reconnection, it has been found before that damping of the pressure tensor to isotropy leads to good agreement with kinetic runs in certain scenarios. An accurate representation of kinetic effects in reconnection was achieved in a study by Wang et al. (Phys. Plasmas, vol. 22, 2015, 012108) with a closure derived from earlier work by Hammett and Perkins (Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 64, 1990, 3019). Here, their approach is analysed on the basis of heat flux data from a Vlasov simulation. As a result, we propose a new local closure in which heat flux is driven by temperature gradients. This way, a more realistic approximation of Landau damping in the collisionless regime is achieved. Previous issues are addressed and the agreement with kinetic simulations in different reconnection set-ups is improved significantly. To the authors’ knowledge, the new fluid model is the first to perform well in simulations of the coalescence of large magnetic islands.

Spectral densities of plasma fluctuations are calculated for the thermal case using classical molecular dynamics (MD) assuming Coulomb interactions and a short-range cutoff radius. The aim of the calculation is to verify limits and performances of such calculations in the light of possible generalizations, e.g. collisional or non-ideal plasmas. Results are presented for ideal, collisionless, fully ionized thermal plasmas. Comparison with the analytical theory reveals a generally satisfactory agreement with possibility for improvement when more strict numerical parameters are used albeit with a strong increase in computational cost. The largest deviations have been observed in the vicinity of the weakly damped eigenmodes. The agreement is strong in other parts of the spectrum, where Landau damping is prominent, and overcomes the effects stemming from the excess collisionality and coupling as well as from the exclusion of short-range collisions.

The stability of an initially one-dimensional electron hole to perturbations varying sinusoidally transverse to its trapping direction is analysed in detail. It is shown that the expected low-frequency eigenmode of the linearized Vlasov–Poisson system consists of a shift mode, proportional to the gradient of the equilibrium potential. The resulting dispersion relation is that the total jetting force exerted by a perturbed hole on the particles balances the electric restoring tension of the hole. The tension is quantitatively small and can often be ignored. The particle force is expressed as integrals of equilibrium parameters over the hole and is shown at low frequency to be exactly equal to what has recently been found (by different analysis) to express ‘kinematic’ hole momentum conservation. The mechanism of instability has nothing to do with the previously hypothesized transverse electron focusing. The unmagnetized growth rate $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}(k)$ is found numerically and is in excellent agreement with recent kinematic estimates. Magnetic field stabilization of the transverse mode is also evaluated. The resulting stability boundary for Maxwellian holes is in reasonable agreement with previously published criteria based on particle simulation. It arises from a change of trapped force sign across the resonance between bounce and cyclotron frequencies.

In tokamak plasmas, sheared flows perpendicular to the driving temperature gradients can strongly stabilise linear modes. While the system is linearly stable, regimes with persistent nonlinear turbulence may develop, i.e. the system is subcritical. A perturbation with small but finite amplitude may be sufficient to push the plasma into a regime where nonlinear effects are dominant and thus allow sustained turbulence. The minimum threshold for nonlinear instability to be triggered provides a criterion for assessing whether a tokamak is likely to stay in the quiescent (laminar) regime. At the critical amplitude, instead of transitioning to the turbulent regime or decaying to a laminar state, the trajectory will map out the edge of chaos. Surprisingly, a quasi-travelling-wave solution is found as an attractor on this edge manifold. This simple advecting solution is qualitatively similar to, but simpler than, the avalanche-like bursts seen in earlier turbulent simulations and provides an insight into how turbulence is sustained in subcritical plasma systems. For large flow shearing rate, the system is only convectively unstable, and given a localised initial perturbation, will eventually return to a laminar state at a fixed spatial location.

An introduction to the use of projection-operator methods for the derivation of classical fluid transport equations for weakly coupled, magnetised, multispecies plasmas is given. In the present work, linear response (small perturbations from an absolute Maxwellian) is addressed. In the Schrödinger representation, projection onto the hydrodynamic subspace leads to the conventional linearized Braginskii fluid equations when one restricts attention to fluxes of first order in the gradients, while the orthogonal projection leads to an alternative derivation of the Braginskii correction equations for the non-hydrodynamic part of the one-particle distribution function. The projection-operator approach provides an appealingly intuitive way of discussing the derivation of transport equations and interpreting the significance of the various parts of the perturbed distribution function; it is also technically more concise. A special case of the Weinhold metric is used to provide a covariant representation of the formalism; this allows a succinct demonstration of the Onsager symmetries for classical transport. The Heisenberg representation is used to derive a generalized Langevin system whose mean recovers the linearized Braginskii equations but that also includes fluctuating forces. Transport coefficients are simply related to the two-time correlation functions of those forces, and physical pictures of the various transport processes are naturally couched in terms of them. A number of appendices review the traditional Chapman–Enskog procedure; record some properties of the linearized Landau collision operator; discuss the covariant representation of the hydrodynamic projection; provide an example of the calculation of some transport effects; describe the decomposition of the stress tensor for magnetised plasma; introduce the linear eigenmodes of the Braginskii equations; and, with the aid of several examples, mention some caveats for the use of projection operators.

So far, only one distribution function giving rise to a collisionless nonlinear force-free current sheet equilibrium allowing for a plasma beta less than one is known (Allanson et al., Phys. Plasmas, vol. 22 (10), 2015, 102116; Allanson et al., J. Plasma Phys., vol. 82 (3), 2016a, 905820306). This distribution function can only be expressed as an infinite series of Hermite functions with very slow convergence and this makes its practical use cumbersome. It is the purpose of this paper to present a general method that allows us to find distribution functions consisting of a finite number of terms (therefore easier to use in practice), but which still allow for current sheet equilibria that can, in principle, have an arbitrarily low plasma beta. The method involves using known solutions and transforming them into new solutions using transformations based on taking integer powers ($N$) of one component of the pressure tensor. The plasma beta of the current sheet corresponding to the transformed distribution functions can then, in principle, have values as low as $1/N$. We present the general form of the distribution functions for arbitrary $N$ and then, as a specific example, discuss the case for $N=2$ in detail.

The nonlinear development of a low frequency beam-cyclotron instability in a collisional plasma composed of magnetized ions and electrons and unmagnetized, negatively charged dust is investigated using one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Collisions of charged particles with neutrals are taken into account via a Langevin operator. The instability, which is driven by an ion $\boldsymbol{E}\times \boldsymbol{B}$ drift, excites a quasi-discrete wavenumber spectrum of waves that propagate perpendicular to the magnetic field with frequency of the order of the dust plasma frequency. In the linear regime, the unstable wavelengths are of the order of the ion gyroradius. As the wave energy density increases, the dominant modes shift to longer wavelengths, suggesting a transition to a Hall-current-type instability. Parameters are considered that reflect the ordering of plasma and dust quantities in laboratory dusty plasmas with high magnetic field. Comparison with the nonlinear development of this beam cyclotron instability in a collisionless dusty plasma is also briefly discussed.

The influence of the corotational electric field on the possibility of long holding of micro-particles with radii of the order of some hundredths of micrometers and quasi-equilibrium charge moving along weakly elliptic orbits in the plasmasphere of the Earth is considered by analytical and numerical methods. It is shown that, unlike the magnetic field, the corotational electric field causes a slow change in the shape of the orbit.