Bounded and Inhomogeneous Plasmas in External Magnetic Field

Abstract

In the previous Chapters the unperturbed plasma has been supposed to be unbounded and homogeneous. However consideration of phenomena in unbounded and homogeneous plasma model is often insufficient for proper description of the experiments. Influence of boundaries on plasma properties is important, for example, in experiments on rf heating of a plasma in the region of frequencies close to the frequency of the LH resonance [203]. Clearly, in such situations the modulational interactions and evolution of nonlinear waves (which can be formed as a result of these interactions) are also affected by the boundary conditions. The nonlinear waves in bounded plasmas have been extensively studied both experimentally and theoretically (see, e.g., [204–216]). The distinctive property of the nonlinear wave structures in bounded systems is that they are often stable with respect to their self-contraction [209]. Thus there is a possibility of direct experimental verification of theory predictions on the solitons in bounded plasmas.