Larmor radius

From FusionWiki
Revision as of 18:16, 19 February 2010 by Admin (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

The Larmor radius is the radius of gyration of a charged particle moving in a magnetic field. Balancing the Lorentz Force

F=qv×B

with the centripetal force, whose magnitude is

F=mv2r

One immediately obtains

rL=mqvB

where only the perpendicular component of the velocity (with respect to the magnetic field) enters.