Phase space analysis and chaotic scattering of plasma ions near a magnetic dipole

Although plasmas appear to make up over 99% of the visible universe, we rarely encounter them; plasmas most frequently thrive in the low pressures of outer space, and the vacuum conditions we create in laboratories and manufacturing facilities on Earth. One way a plasma differs from a neutral gas is that plasma atoms are ionized – the electrons and nuclei are not bound to one another. Plasma particles can interact in significant ways with electric and magnetic fields and vice versa; the fields influence the particle motion, the collective particle motion can induce fields, etc. and the system behavior can become very complicated.

The aim of this thesis is to reveal and analyze the complexity of plasma ion dynamics in a dipole magnetic field with the eventual goal of studying the electric fields associated with the dynamics. This study is unique in that the motion of charged particles in a dipole magnetic field is known to lead to chaotic behavior; in plasma physics, there is no general theory for handling chaotic particle motion in the context of plasma wave fields.

The investigation of fundamental plasma phenomena is sometimes referred to as “basic plasma physics”. While this thesis is not geared toward a specific application or technology, the study of basic plasma physics may have broad implications. This study is part of a greater effort to shed light on basic nonlinear plasma physics.