Wave-particle and wave-wave interactions in hot plasmas: a French historical point of view

Centre de Physique Théorique, Ecole polytechnique, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, 91128 Palaiseau, France

^a e-mail: guy.laval@orange.fr

Received: 30 August 2016
Received in final form: 5 September 2016
Published online: 1 November 2016

Abstract

The first researches on nuclear fusion for energy applications marked the entrance of hot plasmas into the laboratory. It became necessary to understand the behavior of such plasmas and to learn how to manipulate them. Theoreticians and experimentalists, building on the foundations of empirical laws, had to construct this new plasma physics from first principles and to explain the results of more and more complicated experiments. Along this line, two important topics emerged: wave-particle and wave-wave interactions. Here, their history is recalled as it has been lived by a French team from the end of the sixties to the beginning of the twenty-first century.