Frank B. Rosmej - Plasma Atomic Physics

The Springer Series on Atomic, Optical, and Plasma Physics covers in a comprehensive manner theory and experiment in the entire field of atoms and molecules and their interaction with electromagnetic radiation. Books in the series provide a rich source of new ideas and techniques with wide applications in fields such as chemistry, materials science, astrophysics, surface science, plasma technology, advanced optics, aeronomy, and engineering. Laser physics is a particular connecting theme that has provided much of the continuing impetus for new developments in the field, such as quantum computation and Bose-Einstein condensation. The purpose of the series is to cover the gap between standard undergraduate textbooks and the research literature with emphasis on the fundamental ideas, methods, techniques, and results in the field.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/411

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The emission of light is one of the most fascinating phenomena in nature. Everybody feels the beauty when looking at the colors appearing at sunset, when a bolt of lightning illuminates the night, or when the emission of the aurora moves like magic in the dark heaven. And since the discovery of the spectral analysis, no one doubted that the problems of describing atoms and matter would be solved once we had learned to understand the language of atomic spectra and the emission of light.

The book is devoted to the various aspects of light emission and the analysis of the radiative properties of matter and, in particular, the emission and absorption properties of atoms and ions in plasmas. It is based on lectures that we have given at the Sorbonne University in France and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the National Research Nuclear University in Russia.

The purpose of the presented material is to assist students and scientists investigating the complex atomic processes in different kinds of plasmas, by developing relatively simple but effective models. These models allow more generalized considerations and make it possible to extract also universal dependences (e.g., scaling laws) including both atomic and plasma parameters.

A characteristic feature of this book, therefore, is that, along with the presentation of strict quantum theories for the various electromagnetic and collisional processes, considerable attention is paid to a number of qualitative models that allow one to obtain an adequate comprehensive description, appealing more to physical intuition than to mathematical formalism. A distinctive feature of the approaches presented is the wide use of qualitative analogies, which makes it possible to transfer techniques and methods developed for particular processes to other phenomena that are important but have rarely been studied due to their complexity. There are a number of examples: the generalized quasi-classical Kramers approach for radiation transition probabilities, the Enrico Fermi method of equivalent photons as a unification of radiative and collisional processes, the local plasma frequency approximation (the so-called plasma atom) for multi-electron atomic processes, the BornCompton model in the theory of ionization of an atom by electron impact, the quasi-classical methods for population kinetics of Rydberg atomic states and the very recent fascinating developments of quantum kinetics in dense plasmas. The advantage of these simplified models lies not only in the fact of a transparent presentation of the essential physical phenomena but also makes it possible to calculate atomic processes along with their necessary combination of a complex environment like plasma structure, transport, and turbulence.

The monograph also presents recent trends in atomic processes such as reduced population kinetics for the huge numbers of radiativecollisional transitions between autoionizing atomic states, the quantum mechanical interference effects in dense plasma atomic kinetics, hot electron effects, ionization potential depression in near-solid-density plasmas, description of exotic atomic states induced via the interaction of XFEL radiation with solid matter (warm dense matter, hollow ions, etc.) and the interaction of radiation with nanoparticles.