There has been an increase in interest worldwide in fusion research over the last decade and a half due to the recognition that a large number of new, environmentally attractive, sustainable energy sources will be needed to meet ever increasing demand for electrical energy. Based on a series of course notes from graduate courses in plasma physics and fusion energy at MIT, the text begins with an overview of world energy needs, current methods of energy generation, and the potential role that fusion may play in the future. It covers energy issues such as the production of fusion power, power balance, the design of a simple fusion reactor and the basic plasma physics issues faced by the developers of fusion power. This book is suitable for graduate students and researchers working in applied physics and nuclear engineering. A large number of problems accumulated over two decades of teaching are included to aid understanding.

The ?2007 ICTP Summer College on Plasma Physics'' was held at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy, during the period 30 July to 24 August 2007. The purpose of the summer college was to provide training for young scientists from all over the world, mainly from third world countries, and to give them the opportunity to interact with senior scientists in an informal manner. A large number of talks were given by invited speakers and experts, with information about the most recent advances in magnetic confinement fusion and tokamak physics, intense laser?plasma interactions and plasma-based particle acceleration, turbulence, dusty plasmas, and the emerging field of quantum plasmas. A selected number of papers from the invited speakers appear in this book.

The OC 2007 ICTP Summer College on Plasma Physics'' was held at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy, during the period 30 July to 24 August 2007. The purpose of the summer college was to provide training for young scientists from all over the world, mainly from third world countries, and to give them the opportunity to interact with senior scientists in an informal manner. A large number of talks were given by invited speakers and experts, with information about the most recent advances in magnetic confinement fusion and tokamak physics, intense laserOCoplasma interactions and plasma-based particle acceleration, turbulence, dusty plasmas, and the emerging field of quantum plasmas. A selected number of papers from the invited speakers appear in this book. Sample Chapter(s). Foreword (60 KB). Nonlinear Collective Processes in Very Dense Plasmas (1,782 KB). Contents: Nonlinear Collective Processes in Very Dense Plasmas (P K Shukla et al.); Quantum, Spin and QED Effects in Plasmas (G Brodin & M Marklund); Quantum Methodologies in Beam, Fluid and Plasma Physics (R Fedele); Generation of Galactic Seed Magnetic Fields (H Saleem); Multifluid Theory of Solitons (F Verheest); Electro-Acoustic Solitary Waves in Dusty Plasmas (A A Mamun & P K Shukla); Physics of Dust in Magnetic Fusion Devices (Z Wang et al.); Short Wavelength Ballooning Mode in Tokamaks (A Hirose & N Joiner); and other papers. Readership: Researchers in the field of plasma physics."

TO THE SECOND EDITION In the nine years since this book was first written, rapid progress has been made scientifically in nuclear fusion, space physics, and nonlinear plasma theory. At the same time, the energy shortage on the one hand and the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn on the other have increased the national awareness of the important applications of plasma physics to energy production and to the understanding of our space environment. In magnetic confinement fusion, this period has seen the attainment 13 of a Lawson number nTE of 2 x 10 cm -3 sec in the Alcator tokamaks at MIT; neutral-beam heating of the PL T tokamak at Princeton to KTi = 6. 5 keV; increase of average ß to 3%-5% in tokamaks at Oak Ridge and General Atomic; and the stabilization of mirror-confined plasmas at Livermore, together with injection of ion current to near field-reversal conditions in the 2XIIß device. Invention of the tandem mirror has given magnetic confinement a new and exciting dimension. New ideas have emerged, such as the compact torus, surface-field devices, and the EßT mirror-torus hybrid, and some old ideas, such as the stellarator and the reversed-field pinch, have been revived. Radiofrequency heat ing has become a new star with its promise of dc current drive. Perhaps most importantly, great progress has been made in the understanding of the MHD behavior of toroidal plasmas: tearing modes, magnetic Vll Vlll islands, and disruptions.

Describing non-equilibrium "cold" plasmas through a chemical physics approach, this book uses the state-to-state plasma kinetics, which considers each internal state as a new species with its own cross sections. Extended atomic and molecular master equations are coupled with Boltzmann and Monte Carlo methods to solve the electron energy distribution function. Selected examples in different applied fields, such as microelectronics, fusion, and aerospace, are presented and discussed including the self-consistent kinetics in RF parallel plate reactors, the optimization of negative ion sources and the expansion of high enthalpy flows through nozzles of different geometries. The book will cover the main aspects of the state-to-state kinetic approach for the description of nonequilibrium cold plasmas, illustrating the more recent achievements in the development of kinetic models including the self-consistent coupling of master equations and Boltzmann equation for electron dynamics. To give a complete portrayal, the book will assess fundamental concepts and theoretical formulations, based on a unified methodological approach, and explore the insight in related scientific problems still opened for the research community.

This revised and enlarged second edition of the popular textbook and reference contains comprehensive treatments of both the established foundations of magnetic fusion plasma physics and of the newly developing areas of active research. It concludes with a look ahead to fusion power reactors of the future. The well-established topics of fusion plasma physics -- basic plasma phenomena, Coulomb scattering, drifts of charged particles in magnetic and electric fields, plasma confinement by magnetic fields, kinetic and fluid collective plasma theories, plasma equilibria and flux surface geometry, plasma waves and instabilities, classical and neoclassical transport, plasma-materials interactions, radiation, etc. -- are fully developed from first principles through to the computational models employed in modern plasma physics. The new and emerging topics of fusion plasma physics research -- fluctuation-driven plasma transport and gyrokinetic/gyrofluid computational methodology, the physics of the divertor, neutral atom recycling and transport, impurity ion transport, the physics of the plasma edge (diffusive and non-diffusive transport, MARFEs, ELMs, the L-H transition, thermal-radiative instabilities, shear suppression of transport, velocity spin-up), etc. -- are comprehensively developed and related to the experimental evidence. Operational limits on the performance of future fusion reactors are developed from plasma physics and engineering constraints, and conceptual designs of future fusion power reactors are discussed.

The book describes a statistical approach to the basics of plasma physics.