Radiation reaction effects in relativistic plasmas -- the electrostatic limit

TL;DR

This paper investigates how radiation reaction influences electrostatic plasma waves, specifically Langmuir wave damping and background cooling, using a relativistic kinetic model that includes radiation back-reaction effects.

Contribution

It introduces a relativistic Vlasov model extended with Landau-Lifshitz radiation reaction to analyze wave damping and plasma cooling in electrostatic plasmas.

Findings

Langmuir wave damping depends on wavenumber, temperature, and electric field amplitude.

Background plasma loses energy, with cooling rate influenced by initial conditions.

The relative impact of wave damping and cooling varies with initial parameters.

Abstract

We study the evolution of electrostatic plasma waves, using the relativistic Vlasov equation extended by the Landau-Lifshitz radiation reaction, accounting for the back-reaction due to the emission of single particle Larmor radiation. In particular, the Langmuir wave damping is calculated as a function of wavenumber, initial temperature, and initial electric field amplitude. Moreover, the background distribution function loses energy in the process, and we calculate the cooling rate as a function of initial temperature and initial wave amplitude. Finally, we investigate how the relative magnitude of wave damping and background cooling varies with the initial parameters. In particular, it is found that the relative contribution to the energy loss associated with background cooling decreases slowly with the initial wave amplitude.