Teaching plasma physics with computational physics

A senior level course in either plasma physics or in numerical methods may not interest enough students to satisfy The Dean, however, a combined course of one-semester has been found to generate sufficient enrollment. Plasma physics is particularly well-suited for marriage with numerical methods, however, a combined course requires omitting some plasma physics topics. The computational part of the course uses Mathcad, an easy-to-learn spreadsheet. The students download numerical routines (http://debye.colorado.edu/phys4150) that plot potential contours and field lines, follow particle trajectories in magnetic fields, find roots of dispersion relations, evaluate dispersion functions, and the students see more advanced routines for the sheath and presheath, the Fokker-Planck equation, WKB ray tracing, and the Vlasov equation. The course follows F. F. Chen's text and the computational part of the homework often requires applying the written routines in new ways.