Publication date: Dec 2014
Abstract:
Collisionless astrophysical plasmas at kinetic equilibrium can exhibit
geometrical structures characterized by the absence of well-defined
global spatial symmetries. Plasmas of this type can arise in the
surrounding of compact objects and are likely to give rise to
relativistic regimes, being subject to intense gravitational and
electromagnetic fields. This paper deals with the investigation of the
physical mechanisms related to the occurrence of a non-vanishing
equilibrium fluid stress-energy tensor associated with each
collisionless species of plasma charged particles belonging to these
systems. This permits one to obtain information about the thermal
properties of the plasma and to display the related contributions
generated by phase-space anisotropies. The issue is addressed from a
theoretical perspective in the framework of a covariant Vlasov
statistical description, based on the adoption of a relativistic
gyrokinetic theory for the single-particle dynamics.
Authors:
Cremaschini, Claudio; Stuchlík, Zdeněk; Tessarotto, Massimo;