CustomParticle

class plasmapy.particles.particle_class.CustomParticle(mass: Unit("kg") = None, charge: (Unit("C"), <class 'numbers.Real'>) = None)

Bases: plasmapy.particles.particle_class.AbstractParticle

A class to represent custom particles.

Example use cases for this class include representing an average ion in a multi-component plasma, molecules, or dust grains.

Parameters:

• mass (Quantity, optional) – The mass of the custom particle in units of mass.
• charge (Quantity or Real) – The electric charge of the custom particle. If provided as a Quantity, then it must be in units of electric charge. If provided as a real number, then it is treated as the ratio of the charge to the elementary charge.

Raises:

InvalidParticleError – If the charge or mass provided is invalid so that the custom particle cannot be created.

See also

~plasmapy.particles.Particle ~plasmapy.particles.DimensionlessParticle

Notes

If the charge or mass is not specified, then the corresponding value will be set to numpy.nan in the appropriate units.

Examples

>>> from astropy import units as u
>>> from plasmapy.particles import CustomParticle
>>> custom_particle = CustomParticle(mass=1.5e-26 * u.kg, charge=-1)
>>> custom_particle.mass
<Quantity 1.5e-26 kg>
>>> custom_particle.charge
<Quantity -1.60217...e-19 C>

Attributes Summary

charge	Return the custom particle’s electric charge in coulombs.
json_dict	A json friendly dictionary representation of the particle.
mass	Return the custom particle’s mass.

Attributes Documentation

charge

Return the custom particle’s electric charge in coulombs.

json_dict

A json friendly dictionary representation of the particle. (see AbstractParticle.json_dict for more details)

Examples

>>> custom_particle = CustomParticle(mass=5.12 * u.kg, charge=6.2 * u.C)
>>> custom_particle.json_dict
{'plasmapy_particle': {'type': 'CustomParticle',
    'module': 'plasmapy.particles.particle_class',
    'date_created': '...',
    '__init__': {'args': (), 'kwargs': {'mass': '5.12 kg', 'charge': '6.2 C'}}}}
>>> custom_particle = CustomParticle(mass=1.5e-26 * u.kg)
>>> custom_particle.json_dict
{'plasmapy_particle': {'type': 'CustomParticle',
    'module': 'plasmapy.particles.particle_class',
    'date_created': '...',
    '__init__': {'args': (), 'kwargs': {'mass': '1.5e-26 kg', 'charge': 'nan C'}}}}

mass

Return the custom particle’s mass.