Kineclinic magnetogenesis in relativistic collisionless plasmas

Abstract

The relativistic momentum equation of a collisionless plasma is reformulated to describe the time evolution of canonical vorticity. Compared to the non-relativistic counterpart, an additional source term for canonical vorticity is identified, which embodies the misalignment between the fluid momentum and fluid velocity gradients. This kineclinic term breaks the frozen-in condition of canonical vorticity, thereby enabling generation or dissipation of magnetic fields and vorticity. We verify the role of this effect through particle-in-cell simulations of a modified Beltrami flow. Kineclinicity should be finite for all relativistic plasma systems due to the general lack of a functional relationship between fluid momentum and fluid velocity.