Gas-dynamic description of a plasma in a corrugated magnetic field

The authors consider the movement of plasma along a corrugated magnetic field with corrugation scale ℓ smaller than the charged-particle free-path length λ. It is shown that when the scale of longitudinal inhomogeneity of the plasma L is large compared with λ, the movement of the plasma can be described macroscopically. A closed system of macroscopic equations is obtained for the case of a strongly corrugated field (Hmax/Hmin ≫ 1) and several of solutions are found for this system. It is shown that corrugation considerably slows down the longitudinal expansion of the plasma compared with a smooth field and also suppresses the longitudinal thermal conductivity to a marked degree. The results obtained are of interest for controlled nuclear fusion research.