Das Mikrofeld im Plasma

By taking full account of the Coulomb interaction and energy conservation, the probability distribution of the electric and magnetic microfield in an ionized gas is calculated. It results a Gaussian distribution instead of the hitherto used Holtsmark function and its variants which exhibit certain deficiencies. The mean square electric field is found to be proportional to the temperature, in analogy to the Nyquist formula. The probability of finding an atomic charge in the vicinity of another is established. With this, the time correlation function of the microfield and an average of the correlation time is deduced. Applications to the theory of transport phenomena and spectral line broadening are briefly discussed.