Landau damping (nonfiction)

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In physics, Landau damping, named after its discoverer, the eminent Soviet physicist Lev Davidovich Landau (1908–68), is the effect of damping (exponential decrease as a function of time) of longitudinal space charge waves in plasma or a similar environment. This phenomenon prevents an instability from developing, and creates a region of stability in the parameter space.

Theoretical astrophysicist Donald Lynden-Bell later argued that a similar phenomenon was occurring in galactic dynamics, where the gas of electrons interacting by electrostatic forces is replaced by a "gas of stars" interacting by gravitation forces.

Landau damping can be manipulated exactly in numerical simulations such as particle-in-cell simulation.

It was proved to exist experimentally by Malmberg and Wharton in 1964, almost two decades after its prediction by Landau in 1946.

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