Collisions (plasmapy.formulary.collisions
)
Functions to calculate transport coefficients.
This module includes a number of functions for handling Coulomb collisions spanning weakly coupled (low density) to strongly coupled (high density) regimes.
Coulomb collisions
Coulomb collisions are collisions where the interaction force is conveyed via the electric field, instead of any kind of contact force. They usually result in relatively small deflections of particle trajectories. However, given that there are many charged particles in a plasma, one has to take into account the cumulative effects of many such collisions.
Coulomb logarithms
Please read the documentation of
Coulomb_logarithm
below for an
explanation of the seven PlasmaPy-supported methods of computing the
Coulomb logarithm.
Collision rates
The module gathers a few functions helpful for calculating collision
rates between particles. The most general of these is
collision_frequency
.
Macroscopic properties
These include:
Functions
|
Collision frequency of particles in a plasma. |
|
Cross section for a large angle Coulomb collision. |
|
Compute the Coulomb logarithm. |
|
Ratio of the Coulomb energy to the kinetic (usually thermal) energy. |
|
Average momentum relaxation rate for a slowly flowing Maxwellian distribution of electrons. |
|
Average momentum relaxation rate for a slowly flowing Maxwellian distribution of ions. |
|
Impact parameters for classical and quantum Coulomb collision. |
|
Distance of closest approach for a 90° Coulomb collision. |
|
Knudsen number (dimensionless). |
|
Collisional mean free path (m). |
|
Return the electrical mobility. |
|
Spitzer resistivity of a plasma. |