Table of contents

The physical mechanism and general properties of the motion of relativistic charged particles in the cyclotron autoresonance regime are discussed. The motion of particles out of the autoresonance is analyzed. Various methods of maintaining the regime are discussed. Applications of the autoresonance are considered.

Data on the physical properties of diamond as a solid state electronics material are briefly discussed with particular emphasis placed on synthetic crystals and plasma-precipitated films.

Review of papers dealing with two alternative methods of describing nonequilibrium processes in fully ionized plasma. The example of 'Landau damping' is used to demonstrate that a number of fundamental problems remain unsolved in the kinetic theory of plasma. They arise from inconsistent description of transition from the reversible equations of mechanics of charged particles and field to the irreversible equations of continuous medium in statistical theory of plasma. These difficulties can be overcome through consistently defining the structure of continuous medium and the characteristics of dynamic instability of motion. This leads to generalized irreversible equations which provide the basis for unified description of nonequilibrium processes in plasma on kinetic and hydrodynamic scales.

The experimental and theoretical aspects of the dust particle phenomenon are discussed. The subjects include dust particle attraction in open systems ( in spite of charges of up to 10⁵e on individual particles); dust molecule formation; large (100 eV and higher) values of the dust-plasma crystal binding energy; self-contraction instabilities (similar to and operating together with gravitational instability in cosmic structures); free boundary dust-plasma crystals; new dust attraction mechanisms; the growth and agglomeration of dust particles; and the development of long order in dust plasmas. New estimates for understanding the fireball phenomenon and star production are given.

In 1957, to enable the experimental study of fissionable materials at pressures of tens and hundreds of atmospheres, a new approach, which came to be known as the ''Nonexplosive Chain Reaction'' method, was suggested at VNIIEF. Based on compressibility data obtained with the NCR and shock wave methods, the equations of states of plutonium and uranium at record high pressures and densities were constructed.