Landau damping of electrostatic waves in arbitrarily degenerate quantum plasmas

Journal Article · Tue Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4943870· OSTI ID:22599009

Rightley, Shane; Uzdensky, Dmitri ^[1]

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1. Center for Integrated Plasma Studies, Physics Department, University of Colorado, UCB 390, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0390 (United States)

We carry out a systematic study of the dispersion relation for linear electrostatic waves in an arbitrarily degenerate quantum electron plasma. We solve for the complex frequency spectrum for arbitrary values of wavenumber k and level of degeneracy μ. Our finding is that for large k and high μ the real part of the frequency ω{sub r} grows linearly with k and scales with μ, only because of the scaling of the Fermi energy. In this regime, the relative Landau damping rate γ/ω{sub r} becomes independent of k and varies inversely with μ. Thus, damping is weak but finite at moderate levels of degeneracy for short wavelengths.

• OSTI ID: 22599009
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 23, Issue 3; Other Information: (c) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
DISPERSION RELATIONS
ELECTRONS
FERMI LEVEL
LANDAU DAMPING
PLASMA WAVES
QUANTUM PLASMA
SPECTRA
WAVELENGTHS