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;