On the interpretation of computer simulation of classical Coulomb plasma

The conclusions on the violation of some of the basic principles of statistical mechanics and physical kinetics reported by Mayorov, Tkachev, and Yakovlenko [Usp. Fiz. Nauk 164(3) 297 (1994); Phys.-Uspekhi 62(3) 276 (1994)] are shown to be insufficiently substantiated. These conclusions have been drawn from the results of a computer simulation of classical Coulomb plasma, but it is suggested here that these results admit an alternative interpretation. Rejection of the principle of detailed balancing is not an inevitable consequence of the computer simulation results; that this is so also follows from an analysis of microscopic processes reported in the present study. In fact, the behaviour of this type of plasma can substancially depend on near-wall phenomena. A limiting case of the system under consideration (two particles with opposite charges in a closed space) is analysed: collisions of the particles with perfectly reflecting walls are found to make the system behaviour ergodic and to lead to a distribution function that decreases in the domain of negative centre-of-mass energies.