History of Science and Engineering Annotation << Back ON THE HISTORY OF KINETIC THEORY OF PLASMA AS A GAS OF PARTICLES WITH COULOMB INTERACTION A.A. Rukhadze, V.P. Silin We present the way of creating the basic theoretical concepts of collisionless plasma physics, as an example of the medium model, whose properties are mainly determined by collective phenomena in a system of charged particles. The fi rst theoretical understanding of the plasma that emerge before the birth of her name and is still preserved there today because of the well-known J.J. Thomson’s model of the atom as a spheres with electron substance. Developing the theory of this model, Lord Rayleigh in [1] in 1906 laid the foundation for the description of one of the cornerstones of phenomena in plasma physics, what are the electron plasma waves. Almost 20 years later, there were systematic experimental studies of I. Langmuir [2] of the object, which is still followed by the data the Langmuir scientifi c defi nition is called plasma. Thus Langmuir (possible regardless of the Rayleigh theory) and also came to the direct experimental determination of plasma parameters that characterize its electron plasma frequency. Performances Rayleigh confi rmed by the experiments of Langmuir [2,3], have been developed in the I. Langmuir and L. Tonks [4], which the authors used a simple mechanical model of the motion of the plasma substance. So they used Raleigh’s idea of self-consistent fi eld. However, went further, taking into account not only the electric fi eld, and full electromagnetic fields of Maxwell. All this has allowed them to understand the nature of the observed phenomena. The success of [2–4], and the success of the kinetic theory of gases based on the Boltzmann equation and the method of Hilbert–Chapman–Ensckog, gave rise to hope for similar success plasma kinetics. However, it is not for everyone. Because of the long-range interaction of the Coulomb field, the collision cross section of a pair of charged particles is infinite. Therefore, in this case, the Boltzmann equation makes no sense. This lack of theory was eliminated by the experimentalist I. Lengmuir [3], (I. Langmuir, Proc. Nat. Akad. Sci. USA., 14, 627, (1928)), who recalled that in a real plasma Coulomb potential is screened at the distance of electron Debye length [5]. The decisive step towards the creation of the theoretical foundations of a collisionless plasma physics was made by A.A. Vlasov in [6–8]. The kinetic equation describing plasma, he, following to Lord Rayleigh, I. Langmuir and L. Tonks, introduced the self-consistent electromagnetic fi eld, completely neglecting binary collisions of particles. Following the work [5] the introduction of self-consistent fi eld could be considered reasonable. A.A. Vlasov gave a physical interpretation proposed in [4] model. The most important step in building a reasonable kinetic theory as ordinary gases and ionized gas - plasma belongs to NN Bogolubov, who in his book [9], has built a general method for obtaining kinetic equations for gas with weak interaction of particles. With respect to the plasma in the first approximation for the value of cooperation he received Vlasov equation, and the following approach was Landau collision integral [10]. Then A. Lenard [11] and R. Balescu [12] and with the help of the book N.N. Bogolubov, taught us to be taken into account in the kinetic theory of dynamic polarization of the plasma in the description of the interaction of charged particles, which signifi cantly expanded the area of a collision and collisionless description of plasma phenomena. They received a generalization of the Landau collision integral with at all at fi rst understood by a hint of what they found in the integral «paired» collisions can play the new role of the polarization properties of the plasma environment. The effect of the plasma dynamic polarization of the interaction of charged particles in the plasma was investigated in the V.P. Silin’s monograph [13], which shows that in the non-isothermal plasma relaxation and transfer processes can be defi ned by just this effect. A completely different physics of the interaction of particles and electromagnetic fields in plasma physics came through B.I. Davydov [14], which introduced the quantum physics of the plasma apparatus of the theory of the interaction of particles. This approach is a generalization of the classical quantum Boltzmann approach. Keywords: I. Langmuir; plasma; physics; L.D. Landau. Contacts: E-mail: rukh@fpl.gpi.ru Pp. 49-61.