The Vlasov-Ampère system and the Bernstein-Landau paradox

We study the Bernstein-Landau paradox in the collisionless motion of an electrostatic plasma in the presence of a constant external magnetic field. In the presence of the magnetic field, the electric field and the charge density fluctuation have an oscillatory behavior in time, this is the physical phenomenon known as the Bernstein-Landau paradox. This is radically different from Landau damping, in the case without magnetic field, where the electric field tends to zero for large times. We consider this problem from a new point of view. Instead of analyzing the linear magnetized Vlasov-Poisson system, as it is usually done, we study the linear magnetized Vlasov-Ampère system. We formulate the magnetized Vlasov-Ampère system as a Schrödinger equation with a self-adjoint magnetized Vlasov-Ampère operator in the Hilbert space of states with finite energy. The magnetized Vlasov-Ampère operator has a complete set of orthonormal eigenfunctions, that include the Bernstein modes. The expansion of the solution of the magnetized Vlasov-Ampère system in the eigenfunctions shows the oscillatory behavior in time.