Introduction to Plasma Physics

This book grew out of lecture notes for an undergraduate course in plasma physics that has been offered for a number of years at UCLA. With the current increase in interest in controlled fusion and the wide­ spread use of plasma physics in space research and relativistic as­ trophysics, it makes sense for the study of plasmas to become a part of an undergraduate student's basic experience, along with subjects like thermodynamics or quantum mechanics. Although the primary purpose of this boo...