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Basic Space Plasma Physics - Revised Edition

Book · March 2012

DOI: 10.1142/P850

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Wolfgang Baumjohann R. A. Treumann

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Wolfgang Baumjohann
Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy
of Sciences, Graz, Austria

Rudolf A. Treumann
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Munich University, Munich, Germany

Revised Edition
ii
iii
iv
 Preface
to the Revised Edition
After just over one decade where, to our surprise and also to our delight, this treatise
has received widespread interest and use in basic courses in space plasma physics,
and after all the positive reactions to its publication and the encouraging comments
we received, we feel obliged to modernise its content in order to bring it up to the
current state of knowledge in space plasma physics and to meet the needs of students
and teachers in this field. We have been approached several times in the meantime
by various colleagues to invest some effort into a new edition but have resisted for
this long, not only because of the heavy workload we both had but also because we
knew that the interested students and colleagues had already detected misprints and
had corrected them in their copies. We were also thinking of possibly writing another
book which would have consisted solely of problems, so that the interested student
could have learned from solving the problems instead of reading a text. However, as
things evolved, though we started it, we never found the time to proceed with that
project, and so ultimately decided to take the bull by the horns and produce a revised
and slightly extended edition of the original text, now including problems at the end
of each tutorial chapter, and also adding some more literature. The result is what the
reader has in his or her hands.
Most extensions have been seamlessly integrated in an attempt not to distort the
flow. We have also taken great care in detecting the misprints. Hopefully their number
has become undetectable. In addition to the many changes in paraphrasing here and
there, we also added a few new sections, like the one on magnetopause reconstruction
in Chapter 8. These are based on new developments in space physics which we felt
the reader should be informed about in passing.
In the same spirit, we decided to add a chapter on instability and thermal fluc-
tuations. This chapter is needed in order to complete the discussion of the kinetic
dispersion relation, which, in general, has complex solutions. In many cases, one of
these solutions runs unstable. The alert reader has probably already wondered what
happened to those solutions. The new chapter on instability provides the important
answer. We, however, felt that it was then also necessary to raise and answer another
question, about how a wave could grow if it is not already initially present? Fortu-
nately, quantum theory offers an answer to this question in terms of thermal fluctua-
tion theory, which in the classical case simplifies considerably. This theory has been
noted in this chapter and illustrated with a few examples.
Finally, we also felt that a few application chapters should be provided. As the
first we selected the problem of collisionless reconnection, which is at the heart of
the physics of the magnetosphere and thus is directly related to near-Earth space
plasma physics. By today’s belief, it is responsible for the general convective motion
of plasma in the magnetosphere, for filling the magnetosphere with plasma in the first
place and for the global instability of the magnetosphere, the substorm and ultimately

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the magnetospheric storm. Reconnection is a difficult problem which unites global and
microscopic aspects. Its theory is still in active and rapid evolution. We therefore give
only a cursory account of it, adding two brief observational applications: reconnec-
tion at the magnetopause and in the magnetotail, respectively, which from the space
physics point of view are closest to our interest. However, reconnection has much
wider application to solar physics, the universe, and last but not least in the laboratory
and in fusion research.
For the second application we chose the problem of collisionless shocks. This
choice was guided by the importance of shocks in the universe and the plasma physical
interest in this very complicated and fascinating subject. The theory of shocks is a
nice example of lucidity, and in the non-relativistic case it has achieved a state where
it makes sense to attempt a concise textbook review. We do not touch the much more
complicated question of formation of relativistic shocks in this book, however, as in
near-Earth space no examples of such shocks are known, except, possibly, shocks
artificially produced in Laser fusion experiments.
This shock chapter and the former chapter on collisionless reconnection are thus
less tutorial than all other chapters in this volume, but they provide some meat to
the dry theory developed there. We consider this of some value for the reader to also
become confronted with some new developments, which, in addition, go beyond what
is contained in our companion volume. For reasons of limited time we are not in
the position to also revise that book. Including new material on these matters in a
way which simply continues the present book makes sense. That this policy led to an
extension over its original size might be considered disadvantageous. It is, however,
our feeling that the advantages compensate for the disadvantages.
The degree of difficulty of the problems added to the chapters spans a wide range.
Most of them can be answered by intelligent guessing, some of them require simple
calculations by using the formulae given, some are possibly difficult for the beginner
as they require insight and inventive thinking. We have, however, intentionally not
given any answers or solutions as is usually done in textbooks. The reason is that,
from our own experience, an appendix containing the solutions and answers is not
helpful. Rather, it seduces readers to look for the solution instead of investing some
effort themselves. Instead, they will find hints in order to put them on the right track.
The revised version we present herewith is hopefully void of the misprints and
misconceptions that the first edition contained. We are deeply indebted to the students
– in the first place to Kevin Schoeffler from UMD – for detecting and communicating
a number of them to us. We have taken care to keep this text free of errors. Any com-
ments are requested to be sent by electronic mail to [email protected].
We hope the readers, students or instructors will enjoy the new edition or, at least, will
find it useful.
Wolfgang Baumjohann and Rudolf Treumann
 Preface
to the First Edition
One more textbook on plasma physics? Indeed, there are a number of excellent text-
books on the market, like the incomparable book Introduction to Plasma Physics and
Controlled Fusion by Francis F. Chen. It is impossible to compete with a book of this
clarity, or some of the other texts which have been around for longer or shorter periods.
However, we found most of the books not well-suited for a course on space plasma
physics. Some are directed more toward the interests of laboratory plasma physics,
like Chen’s book; others are highly mathematical, such that it would have required an
additional course in applied mathematics to make them accessible to the students. The
vast majority of books in the field of space plasma physics, however, are collections
of review articles, like the recent Introduction to Space Physics edited by Margaret G.
Kivelson and Christopher T. Russell. These books require that the reader already has
some knowledge of the field.
The only textbook specifically addressed to the needs of space plasma physics is
Physics of Space Plasmas by George K. Parks. This book covers many aspects of
space plasma physics, but is ordered in terms of phenomena rather than with respect
to plasma theory. To give the students a feeling for the coherency of our field, we
felt the need to find a compromise between classical plasma physics textbooks and
the books by Parks and Kivelson and Russell. We tried to achieve this goal during
a third-year space plasma physics course, which we have given at the University of
Munich since 1988 for undergraduate and graduate students of geophysics, who had
an average knowledge of fluid dynamics and electromagnetism.
This textbook collects and expands lecture notes from these two-semester courses.
However, the first part can also be used for a one-semester undergraduate course and
research scientists may find the later chapters of the second part helpful. The book
is written in a self-contained way and most of the material is presented, including
the basic steps of derivation, so that the reader can follow without needing to consult
original sources. Some of the more involved mathematical derivations are given in the
Appendix. Special emphasis has been placed on providing instructive figures. Even
figures containing original measurements are mostly redrawn in a more schematic
way.
The first five chapters provide an introduction into space physics, based on a mix-
ture of simple theory and a description of the wealth of space plasma phenomena. A
concise description of the Earth’s plasma environment is followed by a derivation of
single particle motion in electromagnetic fields, adiabatic invariants, and applications
to the Earth’s magnetosphere and ring current. Then the origin and effects of colli-
sions and conductivities and the formation of the ionosphere are discussed. Ohm’s law
and the frozen-in concept are introduced on a somewhat heuristic basis. The first part
ends with an introduction into magnetospheric dynamics, including current systems,

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convection electric fields, substorms and other macroscopic aspects of solar wind-
magnetosphere and magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling.
The second part of the book presents a more rigorous theoretical foundation of
space plasma physics, yet still contains many applications to the subject. It starts from
kinetic theory, which is built on the Klimontovich approach. Introducing moments of
the distribution function allows the derivation of the single and multi-fluid equations,
followed by a discussion of fluid boundaries and shocks, with the Earth’s bow shock
and magnetopause as examples. Both fluid and kinetic theory are then applied to derive
the relevant wave modes in a plasma, again with applications from space physics.
The material presented in this book is extended in Advanced Space Plasma Physics,
written by the same authors. This companion textbook gives a representative selection
of the many macro- and microinstabilities in a plasma, from the Rayleigh–Taylor and
Kelvin–Helmholtz to the electrostatic and electromagnetic instabilities, and a com-
prehensive overview on the nonlinear aspects relevant for space plasma physics, e.g.,
wave-particle interaction, solitons and anomalous transport.
We are grateful to Rosmarie Mayr-Ihbe for turning our often rough sketches into
the figures contained in this book. It is also a pleasure to thank Jim LaBelle for
valuable contributions, Anja Czaykowska and Thomas Bauer for careful reading of
the manuscript and many suggestions, and Karl-Heinz Mühlhäuser and Patrick Daly
for helping with LATEX. We gratefully acknowledge the support of Heinrich Soffel
(Munich University) and Gerhard Haerendel and Gregor Morfill (MPE). We also
acknowledge the patience of our colleagues at MPE when we worked on this book
instead of finishing other projects in time. Both of us owe deep respect to our teachers
who introduced us to geophysics, the late Gerhard Fanselau and Jürgen Untiedt.
Last but not least, we would like to mention that we have profited from many
books and reviews on plasma and space physics. References to most of them have
been included in the suggestions for further reading at the ends of the chapters. These,
however, do not include the very large number of original papers that we made use of
and are indebted to.
Needless to say, we tried to make the text error-free. However, this is an insur-
mountable task. We hope that the readers will kindly inform us about misprints and
errors they may find in here, preferably by electronic mail, to [email protected].
We will be grateful for any hints and post them with other errors on http://www.mpe-
garching.mpg.de/bj/bspp.html.
 Contents

Preface to the Revised Edition v

Preface to the First Edition vii

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Definition of a Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.1 Debye Shielding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.2 Plasma Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.3 Plasma Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 Geophysical Plasmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.2.1 Solar Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.2.2 Magnetosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2.3 Ionosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3 Magnetospheric Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.4 Theoretical Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2 Single Particle Motion 15

2.1 Field Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 Gyration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 Electric Drifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3.1 E × B – Drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.3.2 Polarisation Drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.3 Electric Drift Corrections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.4 Magnetic Drifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.4.1 Gradient Drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.4.2 General Force Drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4.3 Curvature Drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.5 Adiabatic Invariants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.5.1 Magnetic Moment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.5.2 Magnetic Mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.5.3 Adiabatic Heating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.5.4 Longitudinal Invariant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.5.5 Energy Anisotropy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.5.6 Drift Invariant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.5.7 Violation of Invariance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.6 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.6.1 Summary of Guiding Centre Drifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

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3 Trapped Particles 39
3.1 Dipole Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.2 Bounce Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2.1 Equatorial Pitch Angle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2.2 Bounce Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.2.3 Loss Cone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.3 Drift Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.3.1 Magnetic Drift Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.3.2 Electric Drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.4 Sources and Sinks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.4.1 Adiabatic Heating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.4.2 Loss Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.5 Radiation Belts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.6 Ring Current . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.6.1 Magnetic Disturbance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.6.2 Magnetic Storms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.7 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

4 Collisions and Conductivity 60

4.1 Collisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.1.1 Partially Ionised Plasmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.1.2 Fully Ionised Plasmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.2 Plasma Conductivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.2.1 Unmagnetised Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.2.2 Magnetised Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.3 Ionosphere Formation: Chapman Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.3.1 Solar Ultraviolet Ionisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.3.2 Ionisation by Energetic Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.3.3 Recombination and Attachment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.3.4 Ionospheric Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.4 Ionospheric Conductivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.4.1 Conductivity Tensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.4.2 Conductivity Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.5 Ionospheric Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.5.1 Sq Current . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.5.2 Equatorial Electrojet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.6 Auroral Emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.7 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

5 Convection and Substorms 90

5.1 Diffusion and Frozen Flux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.1.1 Magnetic Diffusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.1.2 Hydromagnetic Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.1.3 Magnetic Reynolds Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
C ONTENTS xi

5.1.4 Magnetic Merging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

5.2 Convection Electric Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.2.1 Merging and Reconnection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.2.2 Convection Electric Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.2.3 Shielding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.3 Corotation and Plasmasphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5.3.1 Corotation Electric Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.3.2 Plasmasphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.4 High-Latitude Electrodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.4.1 Ionospheric Convection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.4.2 Height-Integrated Ohm’s Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.4.3 Polarisation Electric Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5.4.4 Joule Heating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.5 Auroral Electrojets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.5.1 Conductances and Electric Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.5.2 Ionospheric and Field-Aligned Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.5.3 Joule Heating and AE Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.6 Magnetospheric Substorms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.6.1 Substorm Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.6.2 Substorm Onset and Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.6.3 Substorm Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.7 Substorm Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.7.1 Substorm Electrojet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.7.2 Substorm Current Wedge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.8 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

6 Elements of Kinetic Theory 126

6.1 Exact Phase Space Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
6.1.1 Exact Particle Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
6.1.2 Equation of Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
6.1.3 Klimontovich–Dupree Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
6.2 Average Distribution Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.2.1 Kinetic Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.2.2 Boltzmann Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
6.2.3 Vlasov Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6.2.4 Approximations to the Vlasov Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.3 Velocity Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
6.3.1 Maxwellian Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
6.3.2 Anisotropic Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
6.3.3 Loss Cone Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.3.4 Energy Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
6.3.5 Kappa and Power Law Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
6.4 Measured Distribution Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
6.4.1 Differential Particle Flux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
6.4.2 Particle Fluxes in Near-Earth Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
6.5 Macroscopic Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
xii C ONTENTS

6.5.1 Velocity Moments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

6.5.2 Concept of Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
6.6 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

7 Plasma Magnetohydrodynamics 157

7.1 Multi-Fluid Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
7.1.1 Continuity Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
7.1.2 Equation of Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
7.1.3 Energy Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
7.2 Equation of State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
7.2.1 Isotropic Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
7.2.2 Anisotropic Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
7.2.3 Double-Adiabatic Invariants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
7.3 Single-Fluid Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
7.3.1 Continuity Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
7.3.2 Equation of Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
7.3.3 Generalised Ohm’s Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
7.3.4 Energy Conservation Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
7.3.5 Entropy Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
7.3.6 Magnetic Tension and Plasma Beta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
7.3.7 Equation of State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
7.4 Stationarity and Equilibria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.4.1 Boltzmann’s Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.4.2 Diamagnetic Drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
7.4.3 Neutral Sheet Current . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
7.4.4 Field-Aligned Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
7.4.5 Polarisation Drifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
7.4.6 Force-Free Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
7.5 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
7.5.1 Validity of Magnetohydrodynamics in Plasmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
7.5.2 Summary of Magnetohydrodynamic Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

8 Flows and Discontinuities 191

8.1 Solar Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
8.1.1 Solar Coronal Outflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
8.1.2 Properties of the Solar Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
8.1.3 Interplanetary Magnetic Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
8.1.4 Interaction with Obstacles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
8.2 Fluid Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
8.2.1 General Jump Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
8.2.2 Rankine–Hugoniot Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
8.3 MHD Discontinuities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
8.3.1 Contact and Tangential Discontinuities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
8.3.2 Rotational Discontinuities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
C ONTENTS xiii

8.3.3 Effect of Pressure Anisotropy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

8.3.4 Entropy Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
8.4 Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
8.4.1 Intermediate Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
8.4.2 True Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
8.4.3 Coplanarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
8.4.4 Jump Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
8.4.5 Fast and Slow Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
8.4.6 Shock Mach Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
8.5 Earth’s Bow Shock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
8.5.1 Parallel and Perpendicular Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
8.5.2 Shock Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
8.6 Earth’s Magnetopause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
8.6.1 Shape of the Magnetopause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
8.6.2 Magnetopause Current System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
8.6.3 Magnetopause Reconstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
8.6.4 Magnetosheath Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
8.6.5 Reconnection at the Magnetopause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
8.7 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

9 Waves in Plasma Fluids 242

9.1 Waves in Unmagnetised Fluids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
9.1.1 Langmuir Oscillations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
9.1.2 Langmuir Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
9.1.3 Ion-Acoustic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
9.1.4 Debye Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
9.1.5 Ordinary Electromagnetic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
9.2 General Dispersion Relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
9.2.1 General Wave Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
9.2.2 General Wave Dispersion Relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
9.2.3 Isotropic Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
9.2.4 Dielectric Response Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
9.3 Plasma Wave Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
9.3.1 Langmuir Plasmons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
9.3.2 Average Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
9.4 Magnetohydrodynamic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
9.4.1 Magnetohydrodynamic Dispersion Relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
9.4.2 Shear Alfvén Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
9.4.3 Magnetosonic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
9.5 Cold Electron Plasma Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
9.5.1 Cold Electron Plasma Dispersion Relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
9.5.2 High-Frequency Electromagnetic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
9.5.3 Parallel Electromagnetic Wave Propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
9.5.4 Perpendicular Electromagnetic Wave Propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
9.6 Two-Fluid Plasma Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
9.6.1 Effect of Ion Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
xiv C ONTENTS

9.6.2 Parallel Wave Propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

9.6.3 Perpendicular Wave Propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
9.6.4 Oblique Propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
9.7 Geomagnetic Pulsations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
9.7.1 Field Line Resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
9.7.2 Sources of Pc Pulsations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
9.7.3 Pi2 Pulsations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
9.8 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

10 Wave Kinetic Theory 294

10.1 Landau–Laplace Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
10.1.1 Langmuir Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
10.1.2 Landau–Laplace Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
10.2 Landau Damping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
10.2.1 Thermal Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
10.2.2 Damping Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
10.2.3 Physics of Landau Damping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
10.3 Unmagnetised Plasma Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
10.3.1 Ion-Acoustic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
10.3.2 Electron-Acoustic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
10.3.3 Electromagnetic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
10.3.4 Plasma Dispersion Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
10.4 Magnetised Dispersion Relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
10.4.1 Particle Resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
10.5 Electrostatic Plasma Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
10.5.1 Magnetised Langmuir and Ion-Acoustic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
10.5.2 Electron Bernstein Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
10.5.3 Upper-Hybrid Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
10.5.4 Ion Bernstein Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
10.5.5 Lower-Hybrid Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
10.6 Electromagnetic Plasma Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
10.6.1 Weak Damping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
10.6.2 Electromagnetic Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
10.6.3 Whistlers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
10.6.4 Electromagnetic Ion-Cyclotron Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
10.6.5 Kinetic Alfvén Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
10.7 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

11 Plasma Instability 345

11.1 Wave Growth Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
11.1.1 Weak Instability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
11.1.2 Non-oscillatory Instability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
11.2 High-frequency Kinetic Instabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
11.2.1 Resonant Excitation of Langmuir Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
C ONTENTS xv

11.2.2 Resonant Excitation of Ion-acoustic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

11.2.3 Excitation of Weibel Instability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
11.3 Fluid Instabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
11.3.1 Electrostatic Two-stream (Buneman) Instability . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
11.3.2 Electromagnetic Beam (Filamentation) Instability . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
11.3.3 Firehose Instability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
11.3.4 Mirror Instability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
11.3.5 Kelvin–Helmholtz Instability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
11.4 Thermal Fluctuations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
11.4.1 General Expressions for the Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
11.4.2 Fluctuations in Isotropic Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
11.5 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

12 Collisionless Reconnection 367

12.1 Reconnection Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
12.1.1 Sweet–Parker–Petschek–Sonnerup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
12.1.2 Ohm’s Law Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
12.2 Small-scale Physics of Reconnection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
12.2.1 Absence of Guide Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
12.2.2 Guide Field Reconnection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
12.2.3 Driven Reconnection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
12.3 Magnetopause Reconnection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
12.3.1 Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
12.3.2 Comparison with Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
12.4 Reconnecting Magnetotail Current Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
12.4.1 Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
12.4.2 Magnetotail-relevant Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
12.5 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406

13 Collisionless Shocks 407

13.1 Subcritical Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
13.1.1 Mechanism of Subcritical Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
13.1.2 Causes of Anomalous Dissipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
13.2 Quasi-perpendicular Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
13.2.1 Dynamics of Particle Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
13.2.2 Shock Foot and Reformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
13.2.3 Particle Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
13.2.4 Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
13.3 Quasi-parallel Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
13.3.1 Foreshock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
13.3.2 Quasi-parallel Shock Reformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
13.4 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
 xvi C ONTENTS

14 Final Remarks 445

A Some Basics 447

A.1 Useful Constants and Numbers (SI units) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
A.2 Energy Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
A.3 Useful Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
A.4 Vectors and Tensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
A.5 Some Electrodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452
A.6 Plasma Entropy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
A.7 Aspects of Analytic Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456

B Some Extensions 461

B.1 Coulomb Logarithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
B.2 Transport Coefficients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
B.3 Geomagnetic Indices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
B.4 Liouville Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
B.5 Clemmow-Mullaly-Allis Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
B.6 Magnetised Dielectric Tensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Index 475

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