Theory of nonlinear interaction of particles and waves in an inverse plasma maser. Part 1. Collision integral

Abstract

An expression is obtained for the collision integral describing the simultaneous interaction of plasma particles with resonant and non-resonant waves. It is shown that this collision integral is determined by two processes: a ‘direct’ nonlinear interaction of particles and waves, and the influence of the non-stationarity of the system. The expression for the nonlinear collision integral is found to be quite different from the expression for a quasi-linear collision integral; in particular, the nonlinear integral contains higher-order derivatives of the distribution function with respect to momentum than the quasi-linear one.