COVARIANT DESCRIPTION OF DISPERSION IN A RELATIVISTIC THERMAL ELECTRON GAS.

Abstract

A covariant and gauge-invariant theory is used to describe dispersion in an isotropic plasma in terms of two invariant functions. These invariants are evaluated explicitly for a relativistic Maxwellian (Juettner-Synge) distribution. The relations between forms for the dispersion of a relativistic Maxwellian Distribution obtained by some earlier authors and the forms obtained here are demonstrated.