Plasma oscillations within Israel-Stewart theory

Abstract

It is well known that, at zero wavenumber, the non-hydrodynamic frequencies of uncharged kinetic theory are purely imaginary. On the other hand, it was recently shown that, in resistive magnetohydrodynamics, the interplay between the Israel-Stewart relaxation equation and the Amp\`{e}re-Maxwell law can give rise to a pair of oscillating non-hydrodynamic modes. In this work, we analyze this phenomenon in detail. We first demonstrate that these oscillatory modes are exact solutions of the Drude model, corresponding to ordinary plasma oscillations. We then invoke the Onsager-Casimir principle to explain that their oscillatory nature reflects the distinct PT-transformation properties of the degrees of freedom: the distribution function is even, while the electric field is odd. Finally, we establish that, in a kinetic theory of charged particles, there can be at most one such pair of oscillatory modes per spatial dimension, while all other modes still must sit on the imaginary axis.