Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2005
The magnetic entropy concept is an interpretative and predictive tool based on probability and information, defined in a suitably coarse-grained possibility space of all current density distributions under testable constraints. This paper develops the concept starting from its statistical foundations and then proceeds illustrating its potentiality in the description of the global behavior of macroscopic plasma configurations with practical interest. Finally, the paper discusses the relations of the concept to the dynamics of the underlying system of particles.