Ponderomotive force near cyclotron resonance

The ponderomotive force, which is involved in the excitation of macroscopic behaviors of plasma caused by wave motion, plays an important role in various non-linear wave motion phenomena. In the present study, equations for the pondermotive force for plasma in a uniform magnetic field is derived using a renormalization theory which is based on the Vlasov equation. It is shown that the pondermotive force, which diverges at the cyclotron resonence point according to adiabatic approximation, can be expressed by a non-divergent equation by taking into account the instability of the cyclotron orbit due to high-order scattering caused by a wave. This is related with chaotic particle behaviors near cyclotron resonance, where the pondermotive force is small and the diffusion process prevails. It is assumed here that the amplitude of the high-frequency electric field is not large and that the broadening of cyclotron levels is smaller than the distance between the levels. A global chaos will be created if the amplitude of the electric field becomes greater to allow the broadening to exceed the distance between the levels. (Nogami, K.)