KINETIC THEORY OF EQUILIBRIUM AXISYMMETRIC COLLISIONLESS PLASMAS IN OFF-EQUATORIAL TORI AROUND COMPACT OBJECTS

Abstract

The possible occurrence of equilibrium off-equatorial tori in the gravitational and electromagnetic fields of astrophysical compact objects has been recently proved based on non-ideal MHD theory. These stationary structures can represent plausible candidates for the modelling of coronal plasmas expected to arise in association with accretion discs. However, accretion disc coronae are formed by a highly diluted environment, and so the fluid description may be inappropriate. The question is posed of whether similar off-equatorial solutions can be determined also in the case of collisionless plasmas for which treatment based on kinetic theory, rather than fluid one, is demanded. In this paper the issue is addressed in the framework of the Vlasov-Maxwell description for non-relativistic multi-species axisymmetric plasmas subject to an external dominant spherical gravitational and dipolar magnetic field. Equilibrium configurations are investigated and explicit solutions for the species kinetic distribution function are constructed, which are expressed in terms of generalized Maxwellian functions characterized by isotropic temperature and non-uniform fluid fields. The conditions for the existence of off-equatorial tori are investigated. It is proved that these levitating systems are admitted under general conditions when both gravitational and magnetic fields contribute to shaping the spatial profiles of equilibrium plasma fluid fields. Then, specifically-kinetic effects carried by the equilibrium solution are explicitly provided and identified here with diamagnetic, energy-correction and electrostatic contributions. It is shown that these kinetic terms characterize the plasma equation of state by introducing non-vanishing deviations from the assumption of thermal pressure.