"Adlam and Allen and Davis, Lust, and Schluter have studied nonlinear plane-waves, propagating normal to the magnetic field, in a cold plasma. One solution of particular interest is a solitary wave, or single pulse. We present a method for solving the analogous problem for a plasma with finite temperature, in the limiting case where the amplitude of the wave is small and where, consequently, the width of the waver is very large."

Both in magnetohydrodynamic shocks and in accelerated partially ionized gas flow across a magnetic field, space charge separation occurs that establishes very large electric fields in the direction of motion. The width of the current layers associated with the acceleration is never less than the electron Larmor radius with no collisions and is broadened by electron collisions to a width solely determined by the effective resistivity. The electrons gain an energy regardless of collisions equal to the electric potential difference across the layer. This potential corresponds to the change in kinetic energy of mass motion per ion. For slightly ionized gases, the additional stress of neutral ion collisions within the layer can make the electric potential and hence gain in electron energy very large for only modest changes in mass velocity. Hence ionization may occur when the change in kinetic energy of the ions is small compared to the ionization potential.

"Activities related to Project Sherwood are summarized under the following topics: propagation of waves, macroscopic magneto-fluid dynamics, stability, particle orbits, cusped geometries, collisionless shock theory, and other subjects."

The guiding center motion and the adiabatic invariants of charged particle trajectories in electromagnetic fields are treated in this review. General and specific theories of charged particle motion are also reviewed.