Relaxation times under pulsed ponderomotive forces and the Central Limit Theorem (2501.11625v1)

Abstract: We study the relaxation time of a plasma which is perturbed by means of a time-dependent pulsed force. This time pulse is modelled using a Gaussian superposition. During such a pulse two forces are considered: An inhomogeneous oscillating electric force and the corresponding ponderomotive force. The evolution of such an ensemble is driven by the Boltzmann Equation, and the perturbed population is described by a power-law distribution function. In this work, as a new feature, instead the usual techniques the transient between both distributions is analysed using the Central Limit Theorem. This technique, together with the ad hoc solved equation of motion of the charges under this particular system of pulsed forces, allows to find the corresponding expressions relating the time pulse with the relaxation times and the dynamic conditions. Furthermore, numerical estimates are also presented. As a result, we show a persistence effect of excitation at high frequencies, when the initial excitation pulse has already ended. The concatenation of such successive pulses could be of interest, for example, in experimental applications with pulsed lasers.