KINETIC EQUATION DESCRIBING IRREVERSIBLE PROCESSES IN IONIZED GASES

Abstract

The present work deals with the formulation of the theory of irreversible processes in ionized gases on the basis of the theory of Bogoliubov for neutral gases. In an extension of the work of Guernsey and Uhlenbeck, the kinetic equation is obtained for a spatially inhomogeneous system in an approximation to the "first order" in the interaction strength (e²) and to all orders in the correlation effect (e²/v, v being the specific volume). The equation, unlike the usual Vlasov equation, is not invariant with respect to time-reversal and shows a genuine "damping" in the sense of an irreversible approach to equilibrium.In the present paper, brief discussions have also been given of the nature of a theory of irreversible processes, the so-called "divergence difficulty", due to the long-range Coulomb forces, the Landau damping, the recent general theory of irreversible processes of Prigogine and Balescu, and the theory of ionized gases of Balescu.