TRANSVERSE CONDUCTIVITY OF A RELATIVISTIC PLASMA IN OBLIQUE ELECTRIC AND MAGNETIC-FIELDS

Resistive tearing is a primary candidate for flares occurring in stressed magnetic fields. Its possible application to the strongly magnetized environments (H(z) approximately 10(12) G) near the surface of neutron stars, particularly as a mechanism for generating the plasma heating and particle acceleration leading to gamma-ray bursts, has motivated a quantum treatment of this process, which requires knowledge of the electrical conductivity sigma of a relativistic gas in a new domain, i.e., that of a low-density (n(e)) plasma in oblique electric [E = (0, E(y), E(z)] and magnetic fields. We discuss the mathematical formalism for calculating sigma and present numerical results for the range of parameter values 10(9) less-than-or-equal-to H(z) less-than-or-equal-to 10(12) G, E(z)/H(z) less-than-or-similar-to 10(-4) H(z)2/E(z), and 10(20) less-than-or-equal-to n(e) less-than-or-equal-to 10(25) cm-3. Our results indicate that sigma depends very strongly on both the applied electric and magnetic fields, and that sigma approximately E(y)2E(z)n(e)2/H(z)2 over this range.