Newsgroups: sci.physics.plasma
From news@oulu.fi Thu Jan 5 03:01:09 1995
From: Timo.Pattikangas@vtt.fi (Timo Pattikangas)
Organization: VTT Energy
Subject: Re: A historical question

>A recent post concerning Landau reminded me of an old story
>I'd heard concerning the development of the kinetic theory
>of plasmas. I'm curious if anyone can confirm or deny this
>history.
>
>I was once told that Vlasov published his kinetic equation,
>but went on to draw completely incorrect conclusions from
>it. Because of the conclusions, the paper was largely ignored.
>Landau then published a very harsh paper, correcting
>these mistakes and suggesting such things as the damping
>now named for him. But because he so prominently mentioned
>Vlasov, the basic, kinetic equation became commonly known as
>the "Vlasov Equation", despite Landau's intent to discredit
>him.
>
>Does anyone know if this history is accurate or if it is
>simply a mythical, "cautionary tale" about really, harshly
>slamming another's work in a later publication?
>
> Frank Crary
> CU Boulder


After presenting the Vlasov and Poisson equations, Landau
writes in the introduction of his paper [4]:

"The equations were used by A. A. Vlasov [1,2] for
investigation of the vibrations of plasma. However,
most of his results turn out to be incorrect. Vlasov
looked for the solutions of the form

const*exp(-i*omega*t+i*k*r)

and determined the dependence of the frequency omega
on the wave vector k. The equation, which he obtained
for this dependence contains a divergent integral; this
already indicates on mathematical incorrectnes of his
method. Vlasov [2] (and also Adirovich [3]) tries to
escape from this difficulty by taking the principal value
of the integral involved, however, without any foundation."

I guess Landau was really slamming Vlasov's earlier
papers. Any typos are mine.

[1] A. Vlasov, Journ. Exper. a. Theor. Phys., 8, 291 (1938).
[2] A. Vlasov, Journ. of Phys., 9, 25 (1945).
[3] E. Adirovich, C. R. Acad. Sci. URSS, 48, No. 8. (1045).
[4] L. Landau, On the Vibrations of the Electronic Plasma,
Journ. of Phys., Vol. 10, No. 1, p. 25-34 (1946).
---
Timo Pattikangas
VTT Energy, Espoo, Finland