Effects of magnetic field on anisotropic temperature relaxation

Abstract

In a strongly magnetized plasma, where the particles' thermal gyro-radii are smaller than the Debye length, the magnetic field greatly affects the plasma's relaxation processes. The expressions for the time rates of change of the electron and ion parallel and perpendicular temperatures are obtained and calculated analytically for small anisotropies through considering binary collisions between charged particles in the presence of a uniform magnetic field by using perturbation theory. Based on these expressions, the effects of the magnetic field on the relaxation of anisotropic electron and ion temperatures due to electron-electron collisions, ion-ion collisions, and electron-ion collisions are investigated. Consequently, the relaxation times of anisotropic electron and ion temperatures to isotropy are calculated. It is shown that electron-ion collisions can affect the relaxation of an anisotropic ion distribution in the strong magnetic field.