MERCREDI 13 OCTOBRE 2010
14 heures
Salle Séminaire 5
Centre de Physique Théorique
Marseille-Luminy

Alain Brizard
Saint Michael's College, Colchester, Vermont, USA

Title: Classical Zitterbewegung in Reduced Plasma Physics

Abstract: The work presents the analogy between the quantum zitterbewegung
(trembling motion) effect in the Dirac theory of the electron with two
important features of reduced plasma physics: (1) the decoupling of
the reduced momentum and the reduced velocity; and (2) the
polarization and magnetization introduced by the process of dynamical
reduction. These features manifest themselves in the asymmetry of the
reduced canonical momentum-stress tensor. According to the
Belinfante-Rosenfeld procedure, the antisymmetric part of the reduced
canonical momentum-stress tensor acts as the source of an intrinsic
(spin) angular momentum which must be taken into account in order to
express the conservation of angular momentum. A discussion of the
toroidal angular-momentum conservation law for axisymmetric tokamak
plasmas is presented.