Plasma Turbulence | B. B. Kadomtsev

This book is a translation of a review by Academician B. B. Kadomtsev of the I. V. Kurchatov Institute, Moscow, which was written at my suggestion in order to have available in concise form the essence of the large body of papers on this difficult yet important subject. It was originally published in Russian in Volume 4 of “ Problems in Plasma Theory ”, edited by M. A. Leontovich (1964).

Academician Kadomtsev is a leading authority on plasma turbulence, and he and his colleagues have contributed many of the original papers on the subject. It is now well known that some form of turbulence is very frequently and often disastrously present in experiments on the confinement of hot plasma. It is not impossible that in the quest for a thermonuclear plasma we shall ultimately have to deal with a more or less turbulent state, and the understanding of this state is therefore important to nuclear fusion research. I believe this book will contribute greatly towards such an under­ standing and help to stimulate further work on the subject.