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Anatoly Aleksandrovich Vlasov (russian: Анато́лий Алекса́ндрович Вла́сов; – 22 December 1975) was a Russian, later
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, theoretical physicist prominent in the fields of statistical mechanics, kinetics, and especially in
plasma physics Plasma ()πλάσμα
, Henry George Liddell, R ...
.


Biography

Anatoly Vlasov was born in Balashov, in the family of a steamfitter. In 1927 he entered into the
Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
(MSU) and graduated from the MSU in 1931. After the graduation Vlasov continued to work in the MSU, where he spent all his life, collaborating with Nobelists
Pyotr Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa or Peter Kapitza ( Russian: Пётр Леонидович Капица, Romanian: Petre Capița ( – 8 April 1984) was a leading Soviet physicist and Nobel laureate, best known for his work in low-temperature physic ...
,
Lev Landau Lev Davidovich Landau (russian: Лев Дави́дович Ланда́у; 22 January 1908 – 1 April 1968) was a Soviet-Azerbaijani physicist of Jewish descent who made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics. His a ...
, and other leading physicists. He became a full Professor at the Moscow State University in 1944 and was the head of the theoretical physics department in the Faculty of Physics at Moscow State University from 1945 to 1953. He was a member of
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
of USSR since
1944 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 2 – WWII: ** Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command French Army B, part of the Sixth United States Army Group in No ...
In 1970 he received the Lenin Prize.


Research

His main works are in
optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultra ...
,
plasma physics Plasma ()πλάσμα
, Henry George Liddell, R ...
, physics of
crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macr ...
s, theory of gravitation, and
statistical physics Statistical physics is a branch of physics that evolved from a foundation of statistical mechanics, which uses methods of probability theory and statistics, and particularly the mathematical tools for dealing with large populations and approxi ...
.


Optics

In optics he analyzed, partially with Vasily Fursov, spectral line broadening in gases at large densities (1936—1938). A new suggestion in these works was to use long range collective interactions between atoms for a correct description of spectra line broadening at large densities.


Plasma physics

Vlasov became world-famous for his work on plasma physics (1938) (see also ). He showed that the
Boltzmann equation The Boltzmann equation or Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) describes the statistical behaviour of a thermodynamic system not in a state of equilibrium, devised by Ludwig Boltzmann in 1872.Encyclopaedia of Physics (2nd Edition), R. G. Ler ...
is not suitable for a description of plasma dynamics due to the existence of long range collective forces in the plasma. Instead, an equation known now as the Vlasov equation was suggested for the correct description to take into account the long range collective forces through a self-consistent field. The field is determined by taking moments of the distribution function described in Vlasov's equation to compute both the charge density and current density. Coupled with Maxwell's equations, the resulting system of differential equations are well-posed provided correct initial conditions and boundary conditions are provided. The Vlasov equation, which is related to the Liouville's equation and the collisionless Boltzmann equation, is fundamental to plasma physics. In 1945, Vlasov showed that this equation, with the collective interaction taken into account, can explain without any additional hypotheses and specifications such effects as the presence and spontaneous origin of eigenfrequencies in polyatomic systems, the spontaneous origin of crystal structure from a "gas" medium, and the presence and spontaneous origin of currents in the media due to the collective interaction of the particles.


Physics of crystals

In this subject Vlasov in particular studied using the linearized Vlasov equation the conditions for spontaneous origin of crystal structure in the medium and found the criteria for the origin of the periodic structure in terms of the
temperature Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer. Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied on ...
,
density Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the substance's mass per unit of volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' can also be used. Mathematicall ...
, and microscopic interaction of particles of the medium.


See also

* Vlasov equation


Selected publications

*A. A. Vlasov (1961). ''Many-Particle Theory and Its Application to Plasma''. New York, Gordon and Breach. ; . *A. A. Vlasov (1966). ''Statistical Distribution Functions''
n Russian N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...
Nauka. *A. A. Vlasov (1978). ''Nonlocal Statistical Mechanics''
n Russian N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...
Nauka, Moscow.


References


External links


Anatolii Aleksandrovich Vlasov (obituary)
(in English), I. P. Bazarov ''et al.'', ''Soviet Physics Uspekhi'' 19, 545—546 (1976).

in the
Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

Anatoly Vlasov
in the All-Russia Genealogical Tree {{DEFAULTSORT:Vlasov 1908 births 1975 deaths 20th-century Russian physicists People from Balashov Moscow State University alumni Academic staff of Moscow State University Lenin Prize winners Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Plasma physicists Theoretical physicists Russian physicists Soviet physicists Burials at Donskoye Cemetery