Overview of Plasma

Synopsis

Plasma makes up the majority of observable matter in the universe and has often been referred to as the fourth state of matter, despite naturally occurring only under rare conditions on Earth. The development of plasma theories has been undertaken to help understand natural phenomena, support laboratory applications and pursue thermonuclear fusion energy production. This presentation will give an overview of how plasma is defined and how it is formed naturally and in a laboratory setting. A fundamental description will be presented to characterize plasma composition and the statistical distributions of particle positions and velocities and, in turn, charge and current distributions. Finally, the tokamak will be introduced as a device used for the electromagnetic containment of plasma for laboratory research and thermonuclear reactors.