Kinetic theory of QED plasmas in a strong electromagnetic field. II. The mean-field description

摘要

Starting from a general relativistic kinetic equation, a self-consistentmean-field equation for fermions is derived within a covariant density matrixapproach of QED plasmas in strong external fields. A Schr\"odinger pictureformulation on space-like hyperplanes is applied. The evolution of thedistribution function is described by the one-particle gauge-invariant 4x4Wigner matrix, which is decomposed in spinor space. A coupled system ofequations for the corresponding Wigner components is obtained. The polarizationcurrent is expressed in terms of the Wigner function. Charge conservation isobeyed. In the quasi-classical limit for the Wigner components a relativisticVlasov equation is obtained, which is presented in an invariant, i.e.hyperplane independent, form.