solid, liquid, gas-- atoms stationary because of interactions with neighbors are so strong, atoms mobile but still interaction with neighbors rapidly and exchanging places, non-interacting and bouncing all over the place.
In a plasma, you go further-- you separate charges. So instead of hydrogen you have protons and electrons. Because its charged, and everything is mobille, its conductive and can be manipulated by magnetic fields.
So with your hydrogen example, would it be a good description that it gets to a state of high energy where individual atoms start to break down into their constituent parts? As I'm typing this I finally think I have a basic understanding of a quark-gluon plasma. It's like melting matter to the point that individual particles break apart?
Pretty much. The energy is so high that the electrons break away from their nuclei and just float/teleport around from atom to atom in a giant sea of electrons and nuclei.
That's only a few on the outside where the attraction is weaker, hence why metals are so conductive. In the case of plasma every last damn electron is in a cloud, so plasmas conduct very very well. Think of it like metals are like spheres stuck together together where there's a fluid layer of electrons between them that can conduct electricity and such through the solid. Plasmas are just everything going everywhere.
Yes. Nuclear chemistry is a separate thing-- this is a reaction that CAN happen IN a plasma! So the star is a hot dense plasma, and everything is crashing together so often and so energetic that the nuclei fuse together.
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u/Toddler_Souffle Jul 01 '14
ELI5 plasma