Neoclassical and Gyrokinetic Theories of Magnetically Confined Plasmas

Theoretical tools for describing the dynamics of magnetically confined plasmas are introduced. The first part of the course provides a systematic derivation and physical discussion of neoclassical theory, which describes the effect of collisions and magnetic-field geometry on the density, flow, temperature, and electric field in tokamaks and stellarators. Topics include neoclassical particle and energy fluxes, bootstrap current, and poloidal flow damping. The second part focuses on gyrokinetics, a theoretical framework used to describe low-frequency plasma dynamics, with an emphasis on geometric methods for describing guiding-center dynamics.