Relativistic heat flux for a single component charged fluid in the presence of an electromagnetic field (1504.02498v1)

Abstract: Transport properties in gases are significantly affected by temperature. In previous works it has been shown that when the thermal agitation in a gas is high enough, such that relativistic effects become relevant, heat dissipation is driven not solely by a temperature gradient but also by other vector forces. In the case of relativistic charged fluids, a heat flux is driven by an electrostatic field even in the single species case. The present work generalizes such result by considering also a magnetic field in an arbitrary inertial reference frame. The corresponding constitutive equation is explicitly obtained showing that both electric and magnetic forces contribute to thermal dissipation. This result may lead to relevant effects in plasma dynamics.