In recent experiments, ultracold plasmas were produced by photoionizing small clouds of laser-cooled atoms. It has been suggested that the low initial temperature of these novel plasmas leads directly to strong correlation and order. In contrast, we argue that rapid intrinsic heating raises the electron temperature to the point where strong correlation cannot develop. The argument is corroborat...

Physics of turbulence and turbulent transport has been developed on the central dogma that spatial gradients constitute the controlling parameters, such as Reynolds number and Rayleigh number. Recent experiments with the nonequilibrium plasmas in magnetic confinement devices, however, have shown that the turbulence and transport change much faster than global parameters, after an abrupt change ...

We investigate the heating of the corona via plasma loops. It is shown that it may be possible to maintain the high corona temperatures using plasma loops as conduits. Under certain conditions heat can flow across magnetic fields up temperature gradients, a mechanism that has been previously applied to the heating of plasma loops. A typical conduit loop is hotter than the ambient plasma in the ...

This tutorial focuses on basic physical concepts relevant to the heating of the corona and acceleration of the solar wind. We begin with a discussion of observations of the solar wind and solar corona and then develop a simple theoretical framework that allows us to explore some implications of the observations. Next we turn to observations of the lower solar atmosphere and their implications f...

There have been numerous independent suggestions to use high speed shocks to heat deuterium gas to thermonuclear temperature (E. Teller, R. R. Wilson, H. Grad, W. Marshall), and extensive experimental work in this field is being carried on by, e.g., Kolb, and Janes. Our own work in this field has been directed towards a fundamental understanding of the strong shock process, in the limit of no p...

The dependence of plasma rotation and heating power on the density limit for MARFE onset hasbeen studied on TEXTOR using different mixtures of auxiliary heating methods (ICRH, co-, andctrNBI). The edge density limit in the plasma heated by NBI is two times larger than thatobserved in the plasma heated by ICRH ( PNBI= PICRH= 1.3 MW). The dependence of the densitylimit with regard...

Extra Ordinary (X) mode conversion to Bernstein wave near Upper Hybrid Resonance (UHR) layer plays an important role in plasma heating through cyclotron resonance. Wave generation at UHR and parametric decay at high power has been observed during Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) heating experiments in toroidal magnetic fusion devices. A small linear system with ECR and UHR layer within the sy...

The laser heating of a plasma with constant density is analyzed using optimal control theory. Heating strategies that minimize the total energy spent, the heating time, or a linear combination of the two, for several values of weighting coelficients, are obtained by determining the optimal laser intensity associated with each point of the phase plane. A numerical example is used to illustrate t...

We report measurements and simulations of disorder-induced heating in ultracold neutral plasmas. Fluorescence from plasma ions is excited using a detuned probe laser beam while the plasma relaxes from its initially disordered nonequilibrium state. This method probes the wings of the ion velocity distribution. The simulations yield information on time-evolving plasma parameters that are difficul...