revealed its close
connection to the problem of controlled fusion. His follow-up papers
put him ahead of other theoreticians. Naturally, it was he who made a
survey of theoretical contributions at the first international
conference on plasma physics and controlled fusion. Many of his
papers became widely known, namely those on the stability of a
pinching discharge, on flute instability in plasma mirrors
(co-authored with K. Longmire), on averaged magnetic well in a
periodic chain of mirrors (with H. Furth), on stabilization of flute
perturbations by finite Larmor radius (with N. Krall and N.
Rostoker), on oscillations in a rotating plasma (with A. Simon), on
the cone instability (with R. Post), on the trapped particle
instability (with H. Berk). M. Rosenbluth suggested an original
method of integrating over trajectories in the collisionless kinetic
equation, which made such an integration a canonical method in the
studies of plasma stability. The Rosenbluth potentials are of a wide
use in plasma kinetic theory for calculating the particle's collision
term.
Besides above-mentioned basic contributions to the theory, he
also contributed to elaborating practical recommendations to prevent
unfavorable events in tokamak-reactor. For instance, the damage of
the first wall of tokamak reactor by the runaway electrons may cause
a disaster. M. Rosenbluth with co-authors elaborated an intricate
mathematical model describing the propagation of a jet of the fluid
hydrogen in a hot plasma and the accompanying phenomena (instability
of jet's evaporation, cavitation, decay of the jet into droplets).
The formulated recommendations are applicable both to the existing
tokamaks and the designed test tokamak-reactor ITER.
The scope of Marshall Rosenbluth's research interests was very wide.
He has obtained many bright innovative theoretical results relevant
to physics of practically all the types of plasma confinement,
including the mirrors, cusps, bumpy-tori, etc. These results play the
role of a classical background for his followers up to now. Marshall
Rosenbluth has a unique ability to generate new ideas, as well as to
perceive ideas of his colleagues and interpret these ideas in a
transparent form. He has trained and mentored an entire school of
eminent scientists in theoretical plasma physics.
Here, in the Kurchatov Institute, Marshall was a well-known person.
He invariably had many sincere friends here.
V.D. Shafranov, V.P. Smirnov, E.P. Velikhov,
and their colleagues-physicists in the Nuclear Fusion Institute
of the Russian Research Centre .