Stochastic perturbation and relaxation of a classical Coulomb plasma

Abstract

It is shown that the dynamic mixing of phase trajectories in a system of classical Coulomb particles does not result in the recombination described by the kinetic equations. The effect of the imprecision of the computational method and the effect of permutation of the particle velocities on recombination relaxation is studied. The imprecision of the numerical integration of the dynamical equations results in a loss of reversibility of the solution and in anomalously slow (in exact calculations) relaxation. If the permutations of the particle velocities are made with a rate higher than the rate of Coulomb collisions, recombination relaxation proceeds in accordance with kinetic theory.