Electrical conductivity tensor of dense plasma in magnetic fields

Abstract

Electrical conductivity of finite-temperature plasma in neutron star crusts is studied for applications in magneto-hydrodynamical description of compact stars. We solve the Boltzmann kinetic equation in relaxation time approximation taking into account the anisotropy of transport due to the magnetic field, the effects of dynamical screening in the scattering matrix element and corre- lations among the nuclei. We show that conductivity has a minimum at a non-zero temperature, a low-temperature decrease and a power-law increase with increasing temperature. Selected numerical results are shown for matter composed of carbon, iron, and heavier nuclei present in the outer crusts of neutron star.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, supplemental material contains 21 tables. Proceedings of "The Modern Physics of Compact Stars and Relativistic Gravity 2015", 30 September 2015 - 3 October 2015 Yerevan, Armeni