Damping of Electron Plasma Oscillations in a Uniform Electric Field

The damping of electron plasma oscillations with large phase velocities is computed as the combination of Landau damping, collisional damping, a growth rate or damping explicitly due to a uniformly applied, steady electric field, and a complementary effect due to the time evolution of the background distribution function. A linear form of the moment equations is used to derive expressions for the field and time-dependent effects. The derivation does not depend upon the specific nature of the resistivity or other dissipative effects. An illustrative example is given for the competition between these effects when a small electric field and classical Ohmic heating are present.