Collisionless relaxation in non-neutral plasmas

Abstract

A theoretical framework is presented which allows us to quantitatively predict the final stationary state achieved by a non-neutral plasma during a process of collisionless relaxation. As a specific application, the theory is used to study relaxation of charged-particle beams. It is shown that a fully matched beam relaxes to the Lynden-Bell distribution. However, when a mismatch is present and the beam oscillates, parametric resonances lead to a core-halo phase separation. The approach developed accounts for both the density and the velocity distributions in the final stationary state.