Microphysics of Cosmic Plasmas

Presents a comprehensive review of physical processes in astrophysical plasmas.
This title presents a review of the detailed aspects of the physical processes that underlie the observed properties, structures and dynamics of cosmic plasmas. An assessment of the status of understanding of microscale processes in all astrophysical collisionless plasmas is provided. The topics discussed include turbulence in astrophysical and solar system plasmas as a phenomenological description of their dynamic properties on all scales; observational, theoretical and modelling aspects of collisionless magnetic reconnection; the formation and dynamics of shock waves; and a review and assessment of microprocesses, such as the hierarchy of plasma instabilities, non-local and non-diffusive transport processes and ionisation and radiation processes. In addition, some of the lessons that have been learned from the extensive existing knowledge of laboratory plasmas as applied to astrophysical problems are also covered. This volume is aimed at graduate students and researchers active in the areas of cosmic plasmas and space science. Originally published in Space Science Reviews journal, Vol. 278/2-4, 2013.

Andre Balogh is Emeritus Professor of Space Physics in Imperial College London and a past Director of the International Space Science Institute, Bern, Switzerland. He has participated in numerous scientific space missions since the mid-1960s and has been a Principal Investigator on the Ulysses and Cluster missions. His principal research interest is the observation and study of magnetic fields in the heliosphere and in planetary environments. He is author and co-author of over 450 scientific publications and editor of seven books on solar system topics.

Prof. Andrei Bykov is head of the High Energy Astrophysics laboratory at the Ioffe Institute of Physics and Technology at the Russian Academy of Sciences and professor of St. Petersburg State Politechnical University. His principal research interests are theory and observations of processes in astrophysical objects with extreme energy release - supernovae, gamma-ray bursts and clusters of galaxies. He is author and coauthor of over 200 scientific publications, including the book ‘Turbulence, Current Sheets and Shocks in Cosmic Plasma’ and editor of four books on high energy astrophysics.

Prof. Peter Cargill is an Emeritus Professor of Physics and an Imperial College and Honorary Professor of the Mathematical Institute at the University of St. Andrews. He is also part of the Space and Atmospheric Physics Group and the Blackett Laboratory.

Prof. Richard Dendy is the Director (jointly with Prof. S. C. Chapman) of Warwick University’s Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, and the Head of Theoretical Plasma Physics at Euratom/UKAEA Fusion Association’s Culham Science Centre. He is a commissioner of the Marshall Scholarships program and an Honorary Professor of Physics at Kyushu University in Japan. Prof. Dendy is also Vice-Chair of the Plasma Physics Division of the European Physical Society and the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion.

Prof. Thierry Dudok de Wit is a professor at the Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l’Environnement et de l’Espace, at the University of Orleans in France.

Prof. John Raymond is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.