Theory of plasmons in quasi-one-dimensional degenerate plasmas

Abstract

An analysis of collective longitudinal electrostatic plasma excitations in quasi-one-dimensional degenerate plasmas is presented using the dielectric function in the random phase approximation. Analytical continuation of the dielectric function into the lower energy half plane allows us to compute the complete spectrum of the collective excitations, including frequencies and damping or growth rates. In contrast to two- and three-dimensional plasmas, a multicomponent quasi-one-dimensional system at zero temperature is found to exhibit one undamped plasmon mode for each component. The conditions for the occurrence of unstable modes are investigated and the influence of temperature and collisions on the results is discussed.