2023/09/13 by Tyler Trent, Pierre Christian, Trent, Tyler +7 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Magnetic confinement fusion research #Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph) #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2309.07231
openalex publication_date 2023/09/13 · openalex created_date 2023/09/16 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Low density plasmas are characterized by a large scale separation between the gyromotion of particles around local magnetic fields and the macroscopic scales of the system, often making global kinetic simulations computationally intractable. The guiding center formalism has been proposed as a powerful tool to bridge the gap between these scales. Despite its usefulness, the guiding center approach has been formulated successfully only in flat spacetimes, limiting its applicability in astrophysical settings. Here, we present a new covariant formalism that leads to kinetic equations in the guiding center limit that are valid in arbitrary spacetimes. Through a variety of experiments, we demonstrate that our equations capture all known gyro-center drifts while overcoming one severe limitation imposed on numerical algorithms by the fast timescales of the particle gyromotion. This formalism will enable explorations of a variety of global plasma kinetic phenomena in the curved spacetimes around black holes and neutron stars.