Plasma as an Ensemble of Independent Particles

Abstract

The direct opposite of the model based on the continuous medium (the conducting-fluid model) is the independent particle model. In this model, in studying the motion of the charged plasma particles, we neglect their mutual interaction completely. Obviously, the independent particle model is more appropriate for the description of tenuous plasmas and the conducting-fluid model is more appropriate for dense plasmas. However, the usefulness of the independent particle model is not restricted to very tenuous plasmas since this model helps us to understand several general plasma properties.