Relativistic quantum plasma dispersion functions

Abstract

Relativistic quantum plasma dispersion functions are defined and the longitudinal and transverse response functions for an electron (plus positron) gas are written in terms of them. The dispersion is separated into Landau-damping, pair-creation and dissipationless regimes. Explicit forms are given for the RQPDFs in the cases of a completely degenerate distribution and a nondegenerate thermal (Jüttner) distribution. Particular emphasis is placed on the relation between dissipation and dispersion, with the dissipation treated in terms of the imaginary parts of RQPDFs. Comparing the dissipation calculated in this way with the existing treatments leads to the identification of errors in the literature, which we correct. We also comment on a controversy as to whether the dispersion curves in a superdense plasma pass through the region where pair creation is allowed.

16 pages, 1 figure

References in corpus (5)

• Neutrino Energy Loss from the Plasma Process at all Temperatures and Densities
• The photo-neutrino process in astrophysical systems
• Differential Neutrino Rates and Emissivities from the Plasma Process in Astrophysical Systems
• Bremsstrahlung neutrinos from electron-electron scattering in a relativistic degenerate electron plasma
• The effect of neutrinos on the initial fireballs in gamma-ray bursts

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Dispersion in a relativistic degenerate electron gas
• Nonlinear propagation of light in Dirac matter
• A dispersion function for the regularized kappa distribution function
• Short-scale quantum kinetic theory including spin-orbit interactions