Dear Colleagues,

We propose organizing a Special Issue: ‘Plasma Physics Highlights: Non-equilibrium Dynamics, Interfaces and Mixing’.

Non-equilibrium dynamics, interfaces and mixing play an important role in plasmas in high and low energy density regimes, at astrophysical and at atomic scales, in nature and technology. Examples include the instabilities and interfacial mixing in supernovae and in inertial confinement fusion, particle–field interactions in magnetic fusion and in imploding Z-pinches, downdrafts in stellar interior and in planetary magneto-convection, plasma thrusters, nanofabrication and magnetic flux ropes and structures in the Solar corona and plasma instabilities in the Earth ionosphere.

In some of these environments (such as stellar interiors and plasma thrusters), non-equilibrium dynamics and interfacial mixing should be enhanced; in others (for instance, in fusion and nanofabrication), they should be mitigated and tightly controlled. In all these circumstances, however, we need to achieve a better understanding of the fundamentals of non-equilibrium transport, interfaces and mixing in plasmas.

Non-equilibrium processes are exceedingly challenging to study. They usually involve sharp changes to the flow fields, high pressures and accelerations, strong magnetic fields and coupled particles and fields. They are inhomogeneous (i.e., the flow fields are essentially non-uniform, even in a statistical sense, and may involve fronts), anisotropic (i.e., their dynamics depend on the directions), non-local (i.e., plasma flows may include contributions from all the scales and sense initial and boundary conditions) and statistically unsteady (i.e., the mean values of the quantities vary with time, and there are also time-dependent fluctuations around these means). Their properties often strongly deviate from those prescribed by standard scenarios at macroscopic scales and at kinetic scales.

Despite these challenges, significant success has recently been achieved in theoretical analysis (for instance, new approaches for handling multi-scale, non-local and statistically unsteady transport, new fluid instabilities and new mechanisms for energy transport in unstable plasma flows), in large-scale numerical simulations (including Lagrangian and Eulerian methods), in experiments (for instance, in fusion facilities and in laboratory plasma devices, including possibilities for large dynamic range, high precision, high accuracy and high data acquisition rate). This opens new opportunities for the study of fundamental properties of non-equilibrium dynamics and mixing at astrophysical and at kinetic scales.

This Special Issue would provide the opportunity to bring together scientists from different areas of plasma physics, including astrophysical, laboratory and fusion plasmas. It would serve to promote the exchange of ideas, and to motivate the discussions of rigorous theoretical approaches and state-of-the-art numerical simulations along with advanced experimental techniques and technological applications. This Special Issue would be of potential interest to the general and highly professional readership of Atoms. It would also attract the attention of the interdisciplinary and international physics communities regarding the fundamentals of plasma physics.

Prof. Dr. Snezhana Abarzhi
Guest Editor

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• plasma physics
• non-equilibrium dynamics
• plasma instabilities
• interfacial mixing
• high energy density
• low energy density
• astrophysical plasmas
• nanofabrication
• plasma discharge