A field theory approach to the evolution of canonical helicity and energy

Abstract

A redefinition of the Lagrangian of a multi-particle system in fields reformulates the single-particle, kinetic, and fluid equations governing fluid and plasma dynamics as a single set of generalized Maxwell's equations and Ohm's law for canonical force-fields. The Lagrangian includes new terms representing the coupling between the motion of particle distributions, between distributions and electromagnetic fields, with relativistic contributions. The formulation shows that the concepts of self-organization and canonical helicity transport are applicable across single-particle, kinetic, and fluid regimes, at classical and relativistic scales. The theory gives the basis for comparing canonical helicity change to energy change in general systems. For example, in a fixed, isolated system subject to non-conservative forces, a species' canonical helicity changes less than total energy only if gradients in density or distribution function are shallow.

In print, accepted by Phys. Plasmas

References in corpus (6)

• On the Origin of Cosmic Magnetic Fields
• Modeling the Large Scale Structures of Astrophysical Jets in the Magnetically Dominated Limit
• Non-Abelian hydrodynamics and the flow of spin in spin-orbit coupled substances
• Yang-Mills Magneto-Fluid Unification
• The Transport of Relative Canonical Helicity
• A two-fluid helicity transport model for flux-rope merging

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Confinement of relativistic electrons in a magnetic mirror en route to a magnetized relativistic pair plasma
• The Topology of Canonical Flux Tubes in Flared Jet Geometry