Radiation in equilibrium with plasma and plasma effects on cosmic microwave background

Abstract

The spectrum of the radiation of a body in equilibrium is given by Planck's law. In plasma, however, waves below the plasma frequency cannot propagate; consequently, the equilibrium radiation inside plasma is necessarily different from the Planck spectrum. We derive, using three different approaches, the spectrum for the equilibrium radiation inside plasma. We show that, while plasma effects cannot be realistically detected with technology available in the near future, there are a number of quantifiable ways in which plasma affects cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation.

arXiv comment13 pages, 6 figures, accepted to PRE

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Suppression of Bremsstrahlung losses from relativistic plasma with energy cutoff
• Ponderomotive Recoil for Electromagnetic Waves
• Magnetogenesis by Wave-Driven Momentum Exchange
• Equilibrium radiation in a plasma medium with spatial and frequency dispersion
• Primordial plasma: influence of non-ideality on equilibrium radiation