Hydrodynamic theory for the magnetization current in a collisionless plasma.

It is demonstrated that the magnetization current, which arises from the interaction of high-frequency electromagnetic waves with hot collisionless, unmagnetized electron plasmas, can be derived by means of the ten-moment system of hydrodynamic equations. It is pointed out that the magnetization current is solely associated with the thermal motion of the electrons, and that it therefore does not appear in cold plasmas. This expression for the magnetization current agrees with those derived previously from kinetic theory. The present derivation provides, however, a comparatively much clearer physical picture of the origin of this current. In the limit where the phase velocity is much larger than the electron thermal velocity, a new result for the high-frequency induced vorticity of the plasma is obtained. It is also shown that the magnetization current in this paper is responsible for a novel scattering mechanism in which the high-frequency electromagnetic waves are scattered off vortex motions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]