Electromagnetic response of a relativistic drifting plasma

TL;DR

This paper studies the electromagnetic response of a relativistic drifting plasma, focusing on charge transport, Hall drift, and polarization effects, with applications to quark-gluon plasma and QCD.

Contribution

It introduces a modified distribution function framework to analyze both constant and time-dependent electromagnetic fields in relativistic plasmas, including polarization drift effects.

Findings

Derived the Hall drift current in relativistic plasmas.

Showed that time-dependent electric fields induce polarization drift.

Quantified charge transport coefficients in quark-gluon plasma and their temperature dependence.

Abstract

We investigate the charge transport properties of a relativistic drifting plasma using the kinetic theory within the relaxation time approximation. The collective drift induced by electromagnetic fields is described in terms of a suitably modified distribution function. The analysis is done for both constant and time dependent field configurations. For constant electromagnetic fields, we obtain the Hall drift current that arises from the transverse motion of charged particles in electric and magnetic fields. Extending the framework to time dependent electric fields, we show that their temporal variations give rise to polarization drift, which significantly alters the structure of the induced current and introduces additional components along both the conventional drift and polarization directions. We present a quantitative estimate of the Hall drift and polarization induced contributions in the quark gluon plasma and study the temperature dependence of the associated charge transport coefficients in the QCD.