Ponderomotive force of quasi-particles in a plasma

Abstract

We derive the force exerted in the background plasma by an arbitrary distribution of non interacting quasi-particles, corresponding to either collective excitations of the plasma (plasmons, phonons) or em dressed particles (photons, neutrinos). Our approach is based on the effective Hamiltonian describing the quasi-classical dynamics of the individual particles in the presence of a background medium. We recover the usual results for the relativistic ponderomotive force of a photon gas, and we derive the force, due to weak interactions, exerted by the electron-neutrinos in a background medium containing electrons, positrons and neutrons with arbitrary distribution functions. Generalization to other background species and other neutrino flavors is also discussed.