Plasma Diagnostic Techniques.

Includes bibliographical references.

This volume is a collection of articles, each written by a different contributor, covering the specialized techniques used in plasma diagnostics. Emphasis is always placed upon the methods relevant to the plasma physics of controlled thermonuclear reaction experiments. Occasional reference is made to ionospheric and space applications, whilst the range of experiments which have been carried out in the thermonuclear laboratories is sufficiently comprehensive to cover most of the plasma measurements required in other physical and engineering fields, mercury are rectifiers for instance. One exception here might be the techniques required in magnetohydrodynamic energy conversion studies, where the prevalent conditions of weakly ionized gas at pressures near atmospheric are rather far removed from the situations considered in this volume. The work is organized into chapters dealing with macroscopic measurements (i.e. deductions from the behaviour of the plasma as a whole), magnetic and electric probe measurements, the emission of electromagnetic radiation from the microwave to the X-ray spectrum, the reaction of optical and microwave radiationintroduced from outside and the analysis of particles emitted from the plasma. Each of the eleven chapters covering these topics is written by different authors having particular experience of the measurement concerned. Discussion of the behaviour of electric probes subject to the alternating input voltages at frequencies near/j, (the so-called 'resonance' probe) is omitted and would have been of interest. The subject matter is always treated from an experimental point of view, but each contributor has sketched in an outline of the basic theory and given references to the more difficult extensions. In one chapter (X-Ray Spectroscopy) the writer shows no embarrassment in revealing the commercial sources of some of the rather special materials required, a commendable lack of inhibition which could greatly assist an experimenter. With this exception and in spite of the inevitable confusion between m.k.s. and other systems of electromagnetic units the editors have succeeded in obtaining an excellent unity of style and notation. Plasma Diagnostic Techniques will evidently be of considerable value as a reference book for workers in experimental plasma physics. The contributors have necessarily been concise and have restricted themselves to phenomena with well established connexion between theory and experiment. The treatment is relatively elementary and readable but always resorts to fundamentals in order to interpret indirect measurements in terms of the plasma parameters sought after. Although the book was probably not intended thus, such attributes make the work quite suitable for preliminary reading in plasma physics, at least as an adjunct to texts more specifically directed towards this purpose.