Princeton University Astroplasmas Seminar

Relativistic plasmas are central to the study of black hole accretion, jet physics, neutron star mergers, and compact object magnetospheres. Going beyond common approaches used in the literature, I will describe a fully relativistic covariant 14-moment based two-fluid system appropriate for the study of electron-ion or electron-positron plasmas. This generalized Israel-Stewart-like system of equations of motion is obtained directly from the relativistic Boltzmann-Vlasov equation. Crucially, this new formulation can account for non-ideal effects, such as anisotropic pressures and heat fluxes. Specializing to the case of non-resistive plasmas, I will present a novel numerical scheme capable of solving these equations in the strongly and weakly collisional limits.

Bridging the gap between formulations of general-relativistic plasmas and dynamical gravity, I will then present a novel reformulation of the Einstein field equations. By exploiting the Palatini formalism, I will show how these equations can be recast into a form resembling non-linear electrodynamics in a medium. Such a formulation might permit the use of advanced numerical methods, such as constraint transport, in simulations of vacuum spacetimes.