Transport coefficients of a relativistic plasma
Physical Review E - Statistical Physics, Plasmas, Fluids, and Related Interdisciplinary Topics American Physical Society 93:5 (2016) 1-16
Abstract:
In this work, a self-consistent transport theory for a relativistic plasma is developed. Using the notation of Braginskii [S. I. Braginskii, in Reviews of Plasma Physics, ed. M. A. Leontovich (1965), Vol. 1, p.174], we provide semi-analytical forms of the electrical resistivity, thermoelectric and thermal conductivity tensors for a Lorentzian plasma in a magnetic field. This treatment is then generalized to plasmas with arbitrary atomic number by numerically solving the linearized Boltzmann equation. The corresponding transport coefficients are fitted by rational functions in order to make them suitable for use in radiation-hydrodynamic simulations and transport calculations. Within the confines of linear transport theory and on the assumption that the plasma is optically thin, our results are valid for temperatures up to a few MeV. By contrast, classical transport theory begins to incur significant errors above kBT ~ 10 keV, e.g., the parallel thermal conductivity is suppressed by 15% at kBT = 20 keV due to relativistic effectsEfficient evaluation of collisional energy transfer terms for plasma particle simulations
Journal of Plasma Physics Cambridge University Press (CUP) 82:1 (2016) 905820107
Diagnosis of Radiation Heating in Iron Buried Layer Targets
Chapter in X-Ray Lasers 2014, Springer Nature 169 (2016) 411-416
Ultra-fast collisional ion heating by electrostatic shocks
Nature Communications Nature Publishing Group 6 (2015) 8905
Abstract:
High intensity lasers can be used to generate shockwaves which have found applications in nuclear fusion, proton imaging, cancer therapies, and materials science. Collisionless electrostatic shocks are one type of shockwave widely studied for applications involving ion acceleration. Here we show a novel mechanism for collisionless electrostatic shocks to heat small amounts of solid density matter to temperatures of ∼ keV in tens of femtoseconds. Unusually, electrons play no direct role in the heating, and it is the ions which determine the heating rate. Ions are heated due to an interplay between the electric field of the shock, the local density increase during the passage of the shock, and collisions between different species of ion. In simulations, these factors combine to produce rapid, localised heating of the lighter ion species. Although the heated volume is modest, this would be one of the fastest heating mechanisms discovered if demonstrated in the laboratory.Self-consistent inclusion of classical large-angle Coulomb collisions in plasma Monte Carlo simulations
Journal of Computational Physics Elsevier 299 (2015) 144-155