Temperature relaxation in a magnetized plasma

Abstract

A magnetic field greatly affects the relaxation phenomena in a plasma when the particles’ thermal gyro-radii are smaller than the Debye length. Its influence on the temperature relaxation (TR) is investigated through consideration of binary collisions between charged particles in the presence of a uniform magnetic field within a perturbation theory. The relaxation times are calculated. It is shown that the electron-electron (e-e) and ion-ion (i-i) TR rates first increase and then decrease as the magnetic field grows, and the doubly logarithmic term contained in the electron-ion (e-i) TR rate results from the exchange between the electron parallel and the ion perpendicular kinetic energies.