Motion of Charged Particles near Magnetic-field Discontinuities
Authors: I.Y. Dodin and N.J. Fisch
Date of PPPL Report: November 2000
Published in: Physical Review E 64 (June 2001) 016405-1 through 016405-4
The motion of charged particles in slowly changing magnetic fields exhibits adiabatic invariance even in the presence of abrupt magnetic discontinuities. Particles near discontinuities in magnetic fields, what we call "boundary particles," are constrained to remain near an arbitrarily fractured boundary even as the particle drifts along the discontinuity. A new adiabatic invariant applies to the motion of these particles.