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  • Open Access

Kineclinic magnetogenesis in relativistic collisionless plasmas

Modhuchandra Laishram1, Suresh Basnet1, and Young Dae Yoon1,2,*

  • *Contact author: youngdae.yoon@apctp.org
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 023210 – Published 26 May, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/m1yq-q8xw

Abstract

The relativistic momentum equation of a collisionless plasma is reformulated to describe the time evolution of canonical vorticity. Compared to the nonrelativistic counterpart, an additional source term for canonical vorticity is identified, which embodies the misalignment between the fluid momentum and fluid velocity gradients. This kineclinic term breaks the frozen-in condition of canonical vorticity, thereby enabling the generation or dissipation of magnetic fields and vorticity. We verify the role of this effect through particle-in-cell simulations of a kineclinic flow. Kineclinicity is generically expected in relativistic plasma kinetic plasmas lacking a functional relationship between fluid momentum and fluid velocity.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 023210– Published 26 May, 2026
  • Received 9 January 2026
  • Accepted 9 May 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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