Guiding-centre transformation of the radiation–reaction force in a non-uniform magnetic field

Abstract

In this paper, we present the guiding-centre transformation of the radiation–reaction force of a classical point charge travelling in a non-uniform magnetic field. The transformation is valid as long as the gyroradius of the charged particles is much smaller than the magnetic field non-uniformity length scale, so that the guiding-centre Lie-transform method is applicable. Elimination of the gyromotion time scale from the radiation–reaction force is obtained with the Poisson-bracket formalism originally introduced by Brizard (Phys. Plasmas, vol. 11, 2004, 4429–4438), where it was used to eliminate the fast gyromotion from the Fokker–Planck collision operator. The formalism presented here is applicable to the motion of charged particles in planetary magnetic fields as well as in magnetic confinement fusion plasmas, where the corresponding so-called synchrotron radiation can be detected. Applications of the guiding-centre radiation–reaction force include tracing of charged particle orbits in complex magnetic fields as well as the kinetic description of plasma when the loss of energy and momentum due to radiation plays an important role, e.g. for runaway-electron dynamics in tokamaks.