Published 1982 | Version v1
Book

Relativistic plasmas

Creators

  • 1. Univ. of California, La Jolla

Description

Recent work on the kinetic theory of a highly relativistic electron gas and the associated photon opacity is discussed. The relaxation time for thermalization by Moller scattering is compared with the characteristic times associated with various loss processes acting to perturb the distribution away from equilibrium. For an optically thin plasma, bremsstrahlung is found to dominate Moller scattering when the dimensionless electron temperature is greater than about 3.5. Results are presented for the opacity from Compton scattering, pair production in the fields of electrons and ions, inverse bremsstrahlung, and synchrotron self-absorption

Additional details

Publishing Information

Publisher
American Institute of Physics.
Imprint Place
New York, NY (USA)
Imprint Title
Gamma ray transients and related astrophysical phenomena
Journal Page Range
p. 169-177.

Conference

Title
Workshop on gamma ray transients and related astrophysical phenomena.
Dates
5-8 Aug 1981.
Place
La Jolla, CA (USA).