Magnetized plasminos in cold and hot QED plasmas

Abstract

The complete quasi-particle spectrum of a magnetized electromagnetic plasma is systematically explored at zero and nonzero temperatures. To this purpose, the general structure of the one-loop corrected propagator of magnetized fermions is determined, and the dispersion relations arising from the pole of this propagator are numerically solved. It turns out that in the lowest Landau level, where only one spin direction is allowed, the spectrum consists of one positively (negatively) charged fermionic mode with positive (negative) spin. In contrast, in higher Landau levels, as an indirect consequence of the double spin degeneracy of fermions, the spectrum consists of two massless collective modes with left- and right-chiralities. The mechanism through which these new collective excitations are created in a uniform magnetic field is similar to the production mechanism of dynamical holes (plasminos) at finite temperature and zero magnetic fields. Whereas cold magnetized plasminos appear for moderate magnetic fields and for all positive momenta of propagating fermions, hot magnetized plasminos appear only in the limit of weak magnetic fields and soft momenta.