Applied Math Colloquium - Stephen Pankavich
Stephen Pankavich, Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Colorado School of Mines Kinetic Models of Collisionless Plasmas Collisionless plasmas arise in a variety of settings, ranging from magnetically confined plasmas for thermonuclear research to space plasmas in planetary magnetospheres and solar winds. The two fundamental 91ÃÛÌÒ¸ó that describe such phenomena are systems of nonlinear partial differential equations known as the Vlasov-Maxwell (VM) and Vlasov-Poisson (VP) systems. In this talk, we derive these related systems and discuss the possibility of shocks arising from a continuous initial distribution of particles. In the process of this investigation, it will be important to delineate the difference between the mathematical formulation of a shock and the phenomena often described by physicists. Finally, if time remains, we will describe the celebrated phenomenon known as Landau Damping and discuss some recent results. https://calendar.colorado.edu/event/applied_math_colloquium_-_stephen_pankavich