Covariant Description of Dispersion in a Relativistic Thermal Electron Gas

Abstract

A covariant and gauge-invariant theorY is used to describe dispersion in an isotropic plasma in terms of two invariant functions. These invariants are evaluated explicitly for a relativistic Maxwellian (Jtittner-Synge) distribution. The relations between forms for the dispersion of a relativistic Maxwellian distribution obtained by some earlier authors and the forms obtained here are demonstrated.