Research, fundamental physics

Large Debye Distance Effects in a Homogeneous Plasma
Journal of Plasma Physics, vol. 41, s. 493, 1989.
Summary: The classical phenomenon of electron plasma oscillations is investigated from new aspects. It is found, for the first time, that the mixing effect of large electron excursions, as compared to the Debye length, introduces significant damping. The corresponding large-Debye-distance (LDD) damping is found to substantially dominate over Landau damping. This limits the applicability of normal-mode analysis of Maxwellian and non-Maxwellian distributions. The physics of LDD damping and its close connection to large-Larmor-radius (LLR) damping is discussed. A major finding concerns perturbations of plasmas with non-Maxwellian, bump-in-tail, velocity distribution functions f0(w). For sufficiently large αλD (of order unity) the plasma responds by damping perturbations that are initially unstable in the Landau sense, i.e. with phase velocities initially in the interval where df0/dw > 0.

On the Minimum Elementary Charge of an Extended Electromagnetic Theory
Physica Scripta, vol. 65, no. 3, s. 200-207, 2002.
Summary: In this study it is argued that the electronic charge should not be considered as an independent constant of nature, but can be deduced in terms of the velocity of light and Planck's constant. Steady axisymmetric equilibria of an earlier developed extended electromagnetic theory are considered, as based on a nonzero electric field divergence in the vacuum state and Lorentz invariance. The computed value of the electron charge deviates only by about 3 percent from that of the experimentally determined elementary charge, and it depends only on the velocity of light and Planck's constant.