Study of high frequency parallel propagating modes in a weakly magnetized relativistic degenerate electron plasma

Using the Vlasov-Maxwell's model, the generalized dispersion relations for parallel propagating electromagnetic modes (R- and L-waves) and electrostatic mode (Langmuir wave) for weakly magnetized relativistic degenerate plasma are derived. The propagation characteristics of these modes are analyzed both analytically and graphically in order to highlight the relativistic and the ambient magnetic field effects in different degenerate plasma environments. Furthermore, the analytical expressions of these modes are extracted for the limiting cases, i. e., non-relativistic (p(F)/m(o)c << 1) and ultra-relativistic (p(F)/m(o)c >> 1). It is noted that the relativistic effects shift the cut-off point towards the lower value of frequency and resultantly broaden the propagation domain. Moreover, the cut-off point of R-wave/L-wave move towards the higher/lower frequency as the strength of ambient magnetic field is increased. The shifting of frequency due to the ambient magnetic field becomes more prominent in the non-relativistic regime than in the highly relativistic one because the relativistic effect suppresses the contribution of the ambient magnetic field. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3690099]