Functional calculus in strong plasma turbulence

Abstract

The theory of electrostatic plasma turbulence is considered. The basic equations for the dynamics of the hierarchy of the moment equations are derived and the difficulty of the closure problem for strong plasma turbulence is discussed. The characteristic functional in phase space is introduced and its relations to the correlation functions are described. The Hopf functional equation for dynamics of the characteristic functional is derived, and its equivalence to the hierarchy of the moment equations is established. Similar formulations were carried out in velocity-wave vector space. characteristic functional are considered and their relationships are studied. An approximate solution for Hopf's equation for the nearly normal turbulence is obtained which is shown to predict diffusion of the mean distribution function in velocity space.