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 (Hz approximately 10(12) G) near the surface of neutron stars motivates 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 = (O,E(y),E(z)[ and magnetic fields. We derive 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), E(y) less-than-or-similar-to 10(-4)H2z/E(z), and 10(20) less-than-or-equal-to n(e) less-than-or-equal-to 10(25) cm-3. We find that sigma approximately E2(y)E(z)n2e/H2z over this range.