Spontaneous electromagnetic fluctuations in a relativistic magnetized electron–positron plasma
Spontaneous fluctuations are a robust phenomenon of plasmas near equilibrium, which does not depend on the existence of instabilities, and their characterization provides valuable information about the role of the relativistic temperatures T∼mc{sup 2} in relativistic regimes. In this paper, we study the broadband spontaneous electromagnetic fluctuations in a relativistic and magnetized pair plasma described by Maxwell–Jüttner distribution functions, based on the fluctuation-dissipation theorem and particle-in-cell simulations. It is shown that the transverse electromagnetic fluctuations are constrained by a temperature-independent critical frequency ω{sub c}=√(Ω{sub c}{sup 2}+(ck){sup 2}), which separates the collisionless damping regime (|ω|<ω{sub c}) from the case where the waves can propagate without damping (|ω|>ω{sub c}). Further, relativistic simulations show an excellent agreement between analytical and numerical results. We expect this formalism to contribute to obtaining useful physical information about the state of relativistic plasmas.