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Landau damping—the damping of coherent oscillations in a system of oscillators with feedback—has been observed in many diverse systems from plasmas to quarks to the flashing of fireflies. There are two general approaches that have been used to understand Landau damping: One approach analyzes Landau damping in terms of the dephasing of oscillators. Another approach explains Landau damping as the result of an energy drain to those oscillators that are resonant with a coherent oscillation. Both approaches are studied in this paper and it is shown that while the two approaches may seem different, they are both valid descriptions of Landau damping.

©1994 American Association of Physics Teachers