Ponderomotive Recoil for Electromagnetic Waves

TL;DR

This paper extends electrostatic theory of ponderomotive recoil to electromagnetic waves in plasmas, demonstrating momentum conservation including both resonant and nonresonant particles through kinetic plasma analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized electromagnetic recoil force theory that incorporates nonresonant particles, validated by kinetic plasma simulations, enhancing understanding of wave-particle momentum exchange.

Findings

Recoil force negates current and rotation drive mechanisms.

Theory validated with hot-plasma simulations.

Provides insight into the generalized Minkowski momentum.

Abstract

When waves damp or amplify on resonant particles in a plasma, the nonresonant particles experience a recoil force that conserves the total momentum between the particles and electromagnetic fields. This force is important to understand, as it can completely negate current drive and rotation drive mechanisms that are predicted on the basis of only the resonant particles. Here, the existing electrostatic theory of this recoil force is extended to electromagnetic waves. While the result bears close similarity to historical fluid theories of laser-plasma interactions, it now incorporates both resonant and nonresonant particles, allowing momentum conservation to be self-consistently proven. Furthermore, the result is shown to be generally valid for kinetic plasmas, which is verified through single-particle hot-plasma simulations. The new form of the force provides physical insight into the nature of the generalized Minkowski (plasmon) momentum of geometrical optics, which is shown to correspond to the momentum gained by the field and nonresonant particles as the wave is self-consistently ramped up from vanishing amplitude.