The focus of this book remains on fundamentals rather than on the details required for interesting but difficult applications, such as magnetic confinement fusion, or the phenomena that occur with extremely high-intensity short-pulse lasers. However, this new work benefits from much rearranging of the subject matter within each topic, resulting in a more coherent structure. There are also some significant
additions, many of which relate to complex plasmas, atmospheric plasmas and plasma applications.

In each case, the emphasis is on a clear and unified understanding of the basic physics that underlies all plasma phenomena. Thus, there are chapters on plasma behavior from the viewpoint of atomic
and molecular physics, as well as on the macroscopic phenomena involved in physical kinetics of plasmas and the transport of radiation and of charged particles within plasmas. With this grounding in the
fundamental physics of plasmas, the notoriously difficult subjects of nonlinear phenomena and of instabilities in plasmas can then be treated with comprehensive clarity.

From the contents:
_ General Concepts in Physics of Excited and Ionized Gases
_ Elementary Processes in Excited and Ionized Gases
_ Physical Kinetics of Ionized Gases
_ Transport Phenomena in Ionized Gases
_ Waves, Instabilities, and Structures in Excited and Ionized Gases
_ Complex Plasmas, Including Atmospheric Plasmas
_ Conclusion – Plasmas in Nature and the Laboratory