Long-Range Collisions in Magnetized Plasmas

Abstract:

Astrophysical (and earthbound) plasmas in strong magnetic fields exhibit collisional effects that are not described by classical collision theory nor by the standard collision operators, such as the Landau or Balescu-Lenard operators. These theories implicitly neglect “long-range” collisions, i.e. collisions with impact parameters large compared to the cyclotron radius. This presentation will review several important physical effects such collisions have on various phenomena, including cross-magnetic field diffusion, heat conduction, and collisional slowing parallel to the magnetic field. Long-range collisions are analyzed as guiding-centers moving in one-dimension along the magnetic field, with parallel energy and momentum transferred to particles on separate field lines through the screened Coulomb interaction. This causes cross-field heat transport that is independent of magnetic field strength B (as opposed to the classical 1/B² scaling), and enhances the rate of collisional slowing parallel to B. The Coulomb interaction between guiding centers on different field lines also produces random ExB drifts that enhance cross-magnetic field diffusion compared to the classical theory. The theory of long-range guiding center collisions must also include the novel effect of “collisional caging”: plasma noise causes two colliding guiding centers to diffuse in relative parallel velocity, reversing their motion along B and colliding several times before becoming uncorrelated. This further enhances cross-field diffusion from long-range collisions by a factor of three, and enhances parallel slowing by a factor of approximately 1.5.