A hybrid fluid model approach to plasma dynamics

Summary for only given, as follows. The connection between fluid dynamics and kinetic theory is made through the calculation of the moments of the kinetic theory distribution function. This removes the unobserved velocity components of phase space which reduces the number of degrees of freedom of the dynamics calculation. There is unfortunately no rigorous method of truncating the set of moment equations. This paper presents a technique for calculating these moments which is both reversible so that the distribution function itself may be found at any time, and has a natural limit in the number of terms which must be calculated. The technique is based on the use of a modification of the collocation method with low order Chebyshev polynomials. It is applied to the two dimensional Vlasov equation, and two sets of calculations are displayed. In one the evolution in time of the electric field and plasma currents and densities near a collecting surface is presented, and in the other the occurrence of the strictly kinetic effect of Landau damping is demonstrated.