Statistical theory of photon gas in plasma

Abstract

The thermodynamical properties of the photon-plasma system had been studied using statistical physics approach. Photons develop an effective mass in the medium thus -- as a result of the finite chemical potential -- a photon Bose-Einstein condensation can be achieved by adjusting one of the relevant parameters (temperature, photon density and plasma density) to criticality. Due to the presence of the plasma, Planck's law of blackbody radiation is also modified with the appearance of a gap below the plasma frequency where a condensation peak of coherent radiation arises for the critical system. This is in accordance with recent optical microcavity experiments which are aiming to develop such photon condensate based coherent light sources. The present study is also expected to have applications in other fields of physics such as astronomy and plasma physics.