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This Special Issue of JPP, edited by Francesco Valentini is entitled Collisions in collisionless plasmas and aims to provide a panoramic view of the state of the art on the subject of collisionality in weakly collisional plasma systems, by collecting relevant contributions from a wide range of different scientific fields in plasma physics, including experiments, theory and numerical modeling.

Editor of the Special Issue

Francesco Valentini

When studying the kinetic dynamics of a plasma, the effects of particle collisions are often considered negligible – the class of so-called collisionless plasmas. However, the assumption of weak collisionality in many plasma systems is only a rough approximation, and particle velocities may differ significantly from a Maxwellian distribution.

On the basis of the H-theorem, according to which the only way to increase entropy (and therefore heat) in a plasma is via collisions, these departures from Maxwellians should enhance locally the plasma collisionality and play a determinant role in the process of plasma thermalization and heating.

The problem of collisions in a plasma is a wide subject with a huge historical literature since the late 1930s, when Landau proposed his multi-dimensional nonlinear integrodifferential collisional operator. The description of realistic plasmas based on the complete Landau model has been always considered a challenge for scientists of different scientific fields. A full understanding of the collisional phenomena in weakly collisional plasma systems would surely represent a relevant step forward in attacking the problem of the heating of the interplanetary medium and of laboratory plasmas.

Contributors include:

O. Pezzi, University of Calabria (Italy)

F. Driscoll and D. Dubin, University of California at San Diego (USA)

L. Pareschi, University of Ferrara (Italy)

P. Hellinger, Astronomical Institute, Prague (Czech Republic)

F. Taccogna, CNR-IMIP Bari (Italy)

Y. Elskens, Université de Marseille (France)

D. Hatch, University of Texas at Austin (USA)

N. Loureiro, IPFN Lisbon (Portugal)

A. Schekochihin, University of Oxford (UK)

G. Del zanno, Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA)

V. Roytershteyn, SciberQuest, Inc. (USA)

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