Landau damping
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In physics, Landau damping, named after its discoverer,[1] Soviet physicist Lev Davidovich Landau (1908–68), is the effect of damping (exponential decrease as a function of time) of longitudinal space charge waves in plasma or a similar environment.[2] This phenomenon prevents an instability from developing, and creates a region of stability in the parameter space. It was later argued by Donald Lynden-Bell that a similar phenomenon was occurring in galactic dynamics,[3] where the gas of electrons interacting by electrostatic forces is replaced by a "gas of stars" interacting by gravitational forces.[4] Landau damping can be manipulated exactly in numerical simulations such as particle-in-cell simulation.[5] It was proved to exist experimentally by Malmberg and Wharton in 1964,[6] almost two decades after its prediction by Landau in 1946.[7]