Joseph Chikva wrote:In the all other languages including the language of official documents I hope you know that "heating" means "thermalization".
I may not be a plasma physicist, but I have studied gaskinetic theory as part of my Ph.D. In addition, English is my native language, and my command thereof is equal or superior (so far as I can judge) to that of every other engineer or engineering student whose writing skills I have had the opportunity to assess.* "Heating" and "thermalization" are not the same thing.
Heating means adding kinetic energy without a corresponding net addition of momentum; the usual implication is that the energy is thermally distributed, but in a system not in thermodynamic equilibrium it doesn't have to be. Thermalization, on the other hand, means the relaxation of a particle velocity distribution towards statistical equilibrium, which implies energy exchange between particles but not a global energy increase. Surely you can imagine how a plasma might be locally "hot" in the energetic sense without being "thermal", or vice versa?
Now, Polywell as described owes almost all of its ion "temperature" (local average kinetic energy) over most of the plasma volume to the potential well produced by electron injection. Is it not clear from this that "plasma heating" by electron injection need not necessarily refer to the production or maintenance of a hot thermal plasma?
And thanks. At least after two your short remarks I understood what they mean saying “POPS”.
You're welcome - I'm glad I could help.
* This isn't as grandiose a claim as it sounds; engineers, even native speakers, are notoriously bad at written English...