Plasma Physics

Contains reports on two research projects.U. S. Atomic Energy Commission (Contract AT(30-1)-1842

Dissipation in intercluster plasma

We discuss dissipative processes in strongly gyrotropic, nearly collisionless plasma in clusters of galaxies (ICM). First, we point out that Braginsky theory, which assumes that collisions are more frequent that the system's dynamical time scale, is inapplicable to fast, sub-viscous ICM motion. Most importantly, the electron contribution to collisional magneto-viscosity dominates over that of ions for short-scale Alfvenic motions. Thus, if a turbulent cascade develops in the ICM and propagates down to scales $\leq 1$ kpc, it is damped collisionally not on ions, but on electrons. Second, in high beta plasma of ICM, small variations of the magnetic field strength, of relative value $\sim 1/\beta$, lead to development of anisotropic pressure instabilities (firehose, mirror and cyclotron). Unstable wave modes may provide additional resonant scattering of particles, effectively keeping the plasma in a state of marginal stability. We show that in this case the dissipation rate of a laminar, subsonic, incompressible flows scales as inverse of plasma beta parameter. We discuss application to the problem of ICM heating.Comment: 4 pages, accepted by ApJ Let

Repeated boundary slopes for 2-bridge knots

We investigate the question of when distinct branched surfaces in the complement of a 2-bridge knot support essential surfaces with identical boundary slopes. We determine all instances in which this occurs and identify an infinite family of knots for which no boundary slopes are repeated

A Diffusion Equation for Quantum Adiabatic Systems

For ergodic adiabatic quantum systems, we study the evolution of energy distribution as the system evolves in time. Starting from the von Neumann equation for the density operator, we obtain the quantum analogue of the Smoluchowski equation on coarse-graining over the energy spectrum. This result brings out the precise notion of quantum diffusion.Comment: 15 pages, Latex, no figure

Plasma Physics

Contains reports on three research projects.U. S. Atomic Energy Commission (Contract AT(30-1)-1842

Plasma Physics

Contains reports on three research projects.U. S. Atomic Energy Commission (Contract AT(30-1)-1842