Courses:

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There is no required textbook for this course, but the following books are recommended reference texts. Prof. Ian Hutchinson's 2003 lecture notes are also included on this page.

Elementary:

Chen, F. F. Introduction to Plasma Physics. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Springer, 1984. ISBN: 9780306413322.

See also:

Shohet, J. L. The Plasma State. San Diego, CA: Academic Press Inc., 1971. ISBN: 9780126405507.

Tanenbaum, B. S. Plasma Physics. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1967. ISBN: 9780070628120.

Intermediate:

Hazeltine, R. D., and F. L. Waelbroeck. The Framework of Plasma Physics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780813342139.

Goldston, R. J., and P. H. Rutherford. Introduction to Plasma Physics. Philadelphia, PA: IOP Publishing, 1995. ISBN: 9780750301831.

See also:

Clemmow, P. C., and J. P. Dougherty. Electrodynamics of Particles and Plasmas. New York, NY: Perseus Books, 1989. ISBN: 9780201515008.

Spitzer, Lyman, Jr. Physics of Fully Ionized Gases. 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 1962.

Schmidt, G. Physics of High Temperature Plasmas. 2nd ed. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1979. ISBN: 9780126266603. (Recommended for theory of particle orbits.)

Boyd, T. J. M., and J. J. Sanderson. Plasma Dynamics. New York, NY: Barnes and Noble, 1969. (Recommended for the statistical mechanics description of plasmas.)

Dendy, R., ed. Plasma Physics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780521484527. (Recommended for specific chapters on space and plasmas and on industrial plasmas.)

Advanced:

Krall, N. A., and A. W. Trivelpiece. Principles of Plasma Physics. Berkeley, CA: San Francisco Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780911302585.

See also:

Ichimaru, S. Principles of Plasma Physics - A Statistical Approach. Boston, MA: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1973. ISBN: 9780805387520.

J. P. Freidberg. Ideal Magnetohydrodynamics. New York, NY: Springer, 1987. ISBN: 9780306425127.

Stix, T. H. Waves in Plasmas. New York, NY: Springer, 1992. ISBN: 9780883188590.

Huddlestone, R. H., and S. L. Leonard. Plasma Diagnostic Techniques. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1965.

Hutchinson, I. H. Principles of Plasma Diagnostics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780521675741.

Rose, D. J., and M. Clark, Jr. Plasmas and Controlled Fusion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1961. ISBN: 9780262180061.

Miyamoto, K. Plasma Physics for Nuclear Fusion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989. ISBN: 9780262631174.

Wesson, J. Tokamaks. 3rd ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780198509226.

Tajima, T., and K. Shibata. Plasma Astrophysics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780813339962.

Courtesy of Prof. Ian Hutchinson. Used with permission.

1. Introduction (PDF)

2. Motion of charged particles in fields (PDF)

3. Collisions in plasmas (PDF - 1.2 MB)

4. Fluid description of plasma (PDF)

5. Electromagnetic waves in plasmas (PDF - 1.0 MB)