Kinetic theory of instability-enhanced collisional effects^a)

The Bogoliubov–Born–Green–Kirkwood–Yvon (BBGKY) hierarchy is used to derive a generalization of the Lenard–Balescu plasma kinetic equation that accounts for wave-particle scattering due to instabilities that originate from discrete particle motion. Application to convective instabilities is emphasized for which the growing waves either propagate out of the domain of interest or modify the particle distribution to reduce the instability amplitude before nonlinear amplitudes are reached. Two such applications are discussed: Langmuir’s paradox and determining the Bohm criterion for multiple ion species plasmas. In these applications, collisions are enhanced by ion-acoustic and ion-ion two-stream instabilities, respectively. The relationship between this kinetic theory and quasilinear theory is discussed.