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Susan Stepney.
Two-body relaxation in relativistic thermal plasmas.

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 202:467-481, 1983.

Summary:

An exact expression for the average energy exchange in a relativistic two-body collision between isotropic particle distributions is calculated. This is used to find the relaxation time-scale for particles with a Maxwellian distribution function. These time-scales are compared with important energy loss time-scales at temperatures \(kT/m_e c^2 \gtrsim 1\).

full paper : scanned PDF 959K | a much extended version appears as chapters 2-4 of Relativistic Thermal Plasmas

@journal(SS-MNRAS-202,
  author = "Susan Stepney",
  title = "Two-body relaxation in relativistic thermal plasmas",
  journal = "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society",
  volume = 202,
  pages = "467--481",
  year = 1983
)