Sheath-induced instabilities in plasmas with E0×B0 drift.

It is shown that ion acoustic waves in plasmas with E0×B0 electron drift become unstable due to the closure of plasma current in the chamber wall. Such unstable modes may enhance both near-wall conductivity and turbulent electron transport in plasma devices with E0×B0 electron drift and unmagnetized ions. It is shown that the instability is sensitive to the wall material: a high value of the dielectric permittivity (such as in metal walls) reduces the mode growth rate by an order of magnitude but does not eliminate the instability completely.

Electromagnetic forces and internal stresses in dielectric media.

The macroscopic electromagnetic force on dielectric bodies and the related problem of the momentum conservation are discussed. It is argued that different forms of the momentum conservation and, respectively, different forms of the force density, correspond to the different ordering in the macroscopic averaging procedure. Different averaging procedures and averaging length scale assumptions result in expressions for the force density with vastly different force density profiles which can potentially be detected experimentally by measuring the profiles of the internal stresses in the medium.

Non-local energy transport in tunneling and plasmonic structures.

Various definitions of the velocity of propagation of the electromagnetic field have been adopted in experimental and theoretical studies of tunneling and plasmonic systems. Tunneling problems are often analyzed by invoking the group delay (or dwell time) velocities. On the other hand, slow light and plasmonic systems are considered by using the wave packet group velocity.