physics.plasm-ph papers

Plasma physics explores the behavior of the fourth state of matter, a superheated soup of charged particles that makes up most of the visible universe. From the fusion power we hope to harness on Earth to the glowing auroras and distant stars above, this field investigates how these energetic gases interact with magnetic fields and light. It is a dynamic area where extreme conditions reveal fundamental laws of nature in ways solid matter never can.

At Gist.Science, we bridge the gap between these complex discoveries and curious minds by processing every new preprint from arXiv in this category. We transform dense, technical research into clear, plain-language explanations alongside detailed summaries, ensuring that breakthroughs in plasma dynamics and fusion energy are accessible to everyone. Below are the latest papers in plasma physics, curated and simplified for your reading.

Comparing Simulated and Observed Particle Energy Distributions through Magnetic Reconnection in Earth's Magnetotail

This study demonstrates that data-driven 2D fully kinetic simulations initialized with MMS mission parameters successfully reproduce the overall shape of ion and electron energy distributions during magnetotail magnetic reconnection, though they tend to underestimate the high-energy electron tail, highlighting the critical influence of initial upstream temperatures and the need for 3D models to fully capture observed particle energization.

Nadja Reisinger, Fabio Bacchini2026-02-18🔭 astro-ph

Investigating Solid-Fluid Phase Coexistence in DC Plasma Bilayer Crystals: The Role of Particle Pairing and Mode Coupling

This study reveals that solid-fluid phase coexistence in DC plasma bilayer crystals is driven by dynamic interlayer particle pairing and non-reciprocal interactions, which cause phonon spectrum deviations from classical monolayer Mode-Coupling Instability theory.

Siddhartha Mangamuri, Lénaïc Couëdel, Surabhi Jaiswal2026-02-18🔬 physics

Conservative formulation of the drift-reduced fluid plasma model

This paper presents a conservative formulation of the drift-reduced fluid plasma model, derived by analytically inverting the polarisation velocity relation, which ensures exact conservation of energy, mass, charge, and momentum in arbitrary magnetic geometries including electromagnetic fluctuations.

Brenno De Lucca, Paolo Ricci, Micol Bassanini, Sergio García Herreros, Zeno Tecchiolli2026-02-18🔬 physics

The universality of filamentation-caused challenges of ultrafast laser energy deposition in semiconductors

This study demonstrates that filamentation universally governs ultrafast laser pulse propagation across various semiconductors, revealing distinct nonlinear parameters and temporal scaling laws that enable optimized energy deposition for future in-volume device fabrication and functionalization.

Maxime Chambonneau, Markus Blothe, Vladimir Yu. Fedorov, Isaure de Kernier, Stelios Tzortzakis, Stefan Nolte2026-02-17🔬 physics.app-ph

Hypothesis of a bi-isotropic-like plasma permeating the interstellar space

This paper proposes a bi-isotropic-like chiral plasma model for interstellar space to derive new electromagnetic wave modes and optical signatures, using radio pulsar data to constrain the magnitude of the chiral parameter to between $10^{-16}$ and $10^{-22}$ .

Filipe S. Ribeiro, Pedro D. S. Silva, Rodolfo Casana, Manoel M. Ferreira2026-02-17🔭 astro-ph

An Adjoint Formulation of Energetic Particle Confinement

This paper presents the first application of a physics-informed neural network (PINN) to solve the inhomogeneous adjoint drift kinetic equation in axisymmetric tokamak geometry, successfully estimating energetic ion mean escape times and demonstrating a viable path toward rapid surrogate models for plasma optimization.

Christopher J. McDevitt, Jonathan S. Arnaud2026-02-17🔬 physics

Density Modulations of Zero Sound

This paper investigates the density modulations in a zero-temperature interacting Fermi gas induced by a moving impurity, demonstrating that strong interactions enable the propagation of collective zero sound modes above a specific velocity threshold and analyzing how these oscillations depend on the interaction potential's strength, range, and shape.

Leonardo Pisani2026-02-17🔬 cond-mat

A More Realistic Z-pinch Snowplow Model

This paper presents an extended snowplow model for Z-pinch experiments that incorporates partial particle entrainment and current loss during contraction, which the authors applied to a specific case.

Miguel Cárdenas2026-02-17🔬 physics

Asymmetry in laser wakefields driven by intense pulses

This paper presents a fundamental approach and an exact analytical formula for the non-zero transverse momentum of electrons crossing an intense laser pulse, thereby explaining the wakefield asymmetry that standard radially symmetric envelope theories fail to predict.

Zsolt Lécz, Szilárd Majorosi2026-02-17🔬 physics

Data-driven modeling of shock physics by physics-informed MeshGraphNets

This paper introduces Physics-Informed MeshGraphNet (PhyMGN), a data-driven surrogate model that incorporates weak physics constraints from the Euler equations to accurately and efficiently simulate Sedov-Taylor shock propagation, outperforming baseline models in generalization and computational cost while preserving physical fidelity.

S. Zhang, M. Mallon, M. Luo, J. Thiyagalingam, P. Tzeferacos, R. Bingham, G. Gregori2026-02-17🔬 physics

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