Pair plasma relaxation time scales
arXiv:1003.5616 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.81.046401
Abstract
By numerically solving the relativistic Boltzmann equations, we compute the time scale for relaxation to thermal equilibrium for an optically thick electron-positron plasma with baryon loading. We focus on the time scales of electromagnetic interactions. The collisional integrals are obtained directly from the corresponding QED matrix elements. Thermalization time scales are computed for a wide range of values of both the total energy density (over 10 orders of magnitude) and of the baryonic loading parameter (over 6 orders of magnitude). This also allows us to study such interesting limiting cases as the almost purely electron-positron plasma or electron-proton plasma as well as intermediate cases. These results appear to be important both for laboratory experiments aimed at generating optically thick pair plasmas as well as for astrophysical models in which electron-positron pair plasmas play a relevant role.
Phys. Rev. E, in press
References in corpus (5)
- Electron-positron pairs in physics and astrophysics: from heavy nuclei to black holes
- Thermalization of a nonequilibrium electron-positron-photon plasma
- Thermalization of the mildly relativistic plasma
- Gamma flashes from relativistic electron-positron plasma droplets
- Thermal reaction processes in a relativistic QED plasma drop
Cited by in corpus (19)
- Theory of photospheric emission from relativistic outflows
- Electromagnetic Solitons in Degenerate Relativistic Electron-Positron Plasma
- Mechanisms for Multi-Scale Structures in Dense Degenerate Astrophysical Plasmas
- A short survey of matter-antimatter evolution in the primordial universe
- Dynamical fast flow generation/acceleration in dense degenerate two-fluid plasmas of astrophysical objects
- Fundamental physics from black holes, neutron stars and gamma-ray bursts
- Self-Guiding of Electromagnetic Beams in Degenerate Relativistic Electron-Positron Plasma
- Cosmological Strangeness Abundance
- Relativistic Expansion of Electron-Positron-Photon Plasma Droplets and Photon Emission
- Thermalization of electron-positron plasma with quantum degeneracy
- Numerical scheme for treatment of Uehling-Uhlenbeck equation for two-particle interactions in relativistic plasma
- Pair creation in hot electrosphere of compact astrophysical objects
- Pauli blocking effects in thermalization of relativistic plasma
- Solitary structure formation and self-guiding of electromagnetic beam in highly degenerate electron plasma
- Bose-Einstein condensation in relativistic plasma
- Electromagnetic propagation in a relativistic electron gas at finite temperatures
- Numerical scheme for evaluating the collision integrals for triple interactions in relativistic plasma
- Electromagnetic vortex beam dynamics in degenerate electron-positron astrophysical plasmas
- Computational forms for binary particle interactions at different levels of anisotropy