General Description of Wave–Particle Interaction Phenomena

Abstract

Wave–particle interactions play fundamental roles in the dynamics and energetics of the inner magnetosphere. To understand these phenomena in detail, some initial knowledge of plasma-wave electrodynamics is required and is presented in Sects. 3.1–3.8. This short introductory material is based on excellent plasma physics books written by Ginzburg and Rukhadze (1975), Akhiezer et al. (1975), Alexandrov et al. (1988), and Stix (1992). The focus in this chapter is on some fundamental modes that can propagate in a magnetized plasma and, specifically, on those that will be considered in later chapters. All the derivations and results presented here, however, are given in a very general form, with a major focus on the kinetic plasma description, that will allow us to use this material for the different wave plasma phenomena in the near-Earth’s plasma. In the final two sections of this chapter, the quasilinear plasma theory and nonlinear drift-kinetic equation are discussed in order to prepare the reader for later material covered in this book.