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The United States is now closer than it has been in over five decades to launching the first nuclear thermal rocket into space, thanks to DRACO—the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Orbit.
Karl H. Spatschek
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 37 | Number 2 | March 2000 | Pages 95-111
Kinetic Theory | doi.org/10.13182/FST00-A11963204
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this overview, the main arguments for a kinetic description of a classical, non-relativistic many-body system are reviewed. The need and strategy for a kinetic description of plasma particles are discussed. The Vlasov, the Landau-Fokker-Planck, and the Balescu-Lenard equations are presented as the most useful kinetic equations for the particle distribution functions. In the second part, some simple applications are discussed. First, collision frequencies are derived. Second, it is shown that in the mean field approximation a linearization of the initial value problem can already give interesting insights into the (collective) dynamic behaviors. Third, quasi-linear and weak turbulence theories are discussed. Fourth, it is argued why in many cases a reduction to a plasmadynamic (fluid) description is appropriate, and popular truncations are summarized. Finally, the generality of the statistical methods is demonstrated on the example of magnetic field line diffusion.