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The work of Spitzer on dynamical friction in a plasma [L. Spitzer, Jr., Physics of Fully Ionized Gases, 2nd ed. (Wiley, New York, 1962), Chap. 5] is extended to relativistic systems. We derive the force of dynamical friction, diffusion tensor, and test particle relaxation rates for a Maxwellian background in the same form as Trubnikov [B. A. Trubnikov, in Reviews of Plasma Physics, edited by M. A. Leontovich (Consultants Bureau, New York, 1965), Vol. 1, p. 105], enabling high-temperature laboratory and astrophysical plasmas to be modeled in a consistent manner.

In this work, a self-consistent transport theory for a relativistic plasma is developed.Using the notation of Braginskii [S. I. Braginskii, in Reviews of Plasma Physics, ed. M. A. Leontovich (1965), Vol. 1, p.174], we provide semi-analytical forms of the electrical resistivity, thermoelectric and thermal conductivity tensors for a Lorentzian plasma in a magnetic field.This treatment is then generalized to plasmas with arbitrary atomic number by numerically solving the linearized Boltzmann equation. The corresponding transport coefficients are fitted by rational functions in order to make them suitable for use in radiation-hydrodynamic simulations and transport calculations. Within the confines of linear transport theory and on the assumption that the plasma is optically thin, our results are valid for temperatures up to a few MeV. By contrast, classical transport theory begins to incur significant errors above k B T ∼ 10 keV, e.g., the parallel thermal conductivity is suppressed by 15% at k B T = 20 keV due to relativistic effects.

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