Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Diffusive Electron Heat Flow And Temperature Variance Along Magnetic Field Lines, Michael Kushlan

Physics Capstone Projects

In this research we examine how electron heat moves along magnetic field lines and how this affects temperature variations in plasmas. Specifically we wrote FORTRAN code to solve the electron temperature equation numerically. We also solved the steady state electron temperature equation analytically using an integrating factor. We verified that the numerical and analytical solutions obtained the same result. Finally we calculated the standard deviation of temperature in our domain for the steady state. Gaussian legendre quadrature was used to integrate various functions. We represented our magnetic field and heat source with Fourier series. The sin and cosine coefficients for …