Relativistic Kinetic Theory

Gregory V. Vereshchagin is Professor at the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network (ICRANet), Pescara, Italy. He graduated from Belarusian State University and received a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the National Academy of Sciences, Belarus. He also holds a PhD degree in Relativistic Astrophysics from Sapienza University, Rome, and was awarded the NATO-CNR fellowship. Author of more than 30 refereed papers, his research interests include cosmological singularity and inflation, loop quantum cosmology, the role of neutrino in cosmology, thermalization of relativistic plasma, and photospheric emission from relativistic outflows. Alexey G. Aksenov is senior researcher at the Institute for Computer-Aided Design, Russian Academy of Sciences (ICAD RAS), Moscow. He graduated from the Moscow State Engineering Physics Institute (Technical University) and holds a PhD in Astrophysics from the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is author of more than 30 refereed publications in different topics in astrophysics and plasma physics, gravitational collapse, neutrino transport, inertial confinement fusion, numerical solution of kinetic Boltzmann equations, and hydrodynamic simulations.

Preface; Acknowledgements; Acronyms and definitions; Introduction; Part I. Theoretical Foundations: 1. Basic concepts; 2. Kinetic equation; 3. Averaging; 4. Conservation laws and equilibrium; 5. Relativistic BBGKY hierarchy; 6. Basic parameters in gases and plasmas; Part II. Numerical Methods: 7. The basics of computational physics; 8. Direct integration of Boltzmann equations; 9. Multidimensional hydrodynamics; Part III. Applications: 10. Wave dispersion in relativistic plasma; 11. Thermalization in relativistic plasma; 12. Kinetics of particles in strong fields; 13. Compton scattering in astrophysics and cosmology; 14. Self-gravitating systems; 15. Neutrinos, gravitational collapse and supernovae; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.