Abstract
We investigate the effects of Pauli blocking on thermalization process of relativistic plasma by solving relativistic Uehling-Uhlenbeck equations with QED collision integral for all binary and triple processes. With this purpose we consider nonequilibrium initial state of plasma to be strongly degenerate. We found that when electron-positron annihilation is efficient, initial plasma degeneracy is quickly destroyed. As a result in a wide range of final temperatures ranging from nonrelativistic to mildly relativistic 0.1mec2≤kBT≤10mec2 thermalization is not affected by Pauli blocking. Conversely, when electron-positron annihilation process is inefficient, thermalization process in such degenerate plasma is strongly affected by Pauli blocking. This is possible either in a nonrelativistic plasma, with equilibrium temperature kBT≤0.3mec2, or in photon-electron plasma. In these cases all reaction rates are strongly suppressed by Pauli blocking and thermalization does not occur until electrons can populate energy states above the Fermi energy. Soon after this happens thermalization proceeds suddenly in an avalanche-like process. Such rapid thermalization can be a unique footprint of strongly degenerate plasma.
Highlights
Pauli exclusion principle is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics and it manifests in many branches of physics: condensed matter, chemistry, molecular biology, etc
Pauli principle plays a crucial role in a dense matter state [6], it affects conductivity in a dense Coulomb plasma [7], for extreme plasma densities it leads to depression of ionization potential [8], it is crucial in many nuclear physics problems [9,10,11,12]
In this work we focus on highly degenerate pair state and the effect of the Pauli blocking on plasma thermalization
Summary
Pauli exclusion principle is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics and it manifests in many branches of physics: condensed matter, chemistry, molecular biology, etc. Existence and stability of such compact astrophysical objects as white dwarfs [18, 19] and neutron stars is possible due to Pauli blocking [20], which modifies the equation of state at high densities and prevents gravitational collapse of stars with mass below ∼ 3 solar masses after their nuclear fuel is exhausted. Another arena of manifestation of the Pauli blocking effect is relativistic plasma. In appendix we present a table describing Bose enhancement and Pauli blocking factors for all binary and triple reactions considered
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