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# The Metallicity of the Red Giant Branch in the Disk of NGC 6822

## 1 INTRODUCTION

NGC 6822 is an isolated dwarf irregular (dIrr) galaxy belonging to the ‘Local Group Cloud’ (Mateo 1998). As the nearest isolated dIrr galaxy, NGC 6822 is an important laboratory for probing the evolution of this type of system. It is therefore not surprising that the stellar content of NGC 6822 has been the subject of a number of investigations, and these have found stars spanning a broad range of ages.

The youngest stars in NGC 6822 are distributed in an irregular fashion in and around the central bar (Hodge 1980; Hodge et al. 1991; Marconi et al. 1995; Gallert et al. 1996a; Wyder 2001). Gallert et al. (1996b) conclude that the star formation rate (SFR) in NGC 6822 has been constant over much of the age of the galaxy, with the exception of a drop in activity during intermediate epochs. However, the SFR has increased during the past one Gyr (Marconi et al. 1995; Gallert et al. 1996a; Wyder 2001), and there are morphological signatures that are suggestive of a tidal interaction (Hutchings, Cavanagh, & Bianchi 1999; de Blok & Walter 2000), which may have triggered the recent increase in star-forming activity. NGC 6822 is also surrounded by an extended stellar halo that has been traced with Carbon stars (Letarte et al. 2002), suggesting that during intermediate epochs star formation was distributed over a larger area than is currently the case.

Tolstoy et al. (2001) conclude that \[Fe/H\] in NGC 6822 grew steadily with time from early epochs until 3 Gyr in the past, at which point the pace of chemical enrichment accelerated due to an increase in the SFR. For comparison, Wyder (2001) suggests that NGC 6822 may have experienced a rapid initial chemical enrichment, and that \[Fe/H\] has been constant or only slowly changing with time during the past 7 Gyr with \[Fe/H\] $`=1`$. However, Wyder (2001) also emphasizes that the age-metallicity degeneracy that plagues photometric studies of old populations renders his chemical enrichment history of NGC 6822 very uncertain more than 3 Gyr in the past.

There is a growing body of spectroscopic observations of sources in NGC 6822 that can be used to investigate directly the chemical enrichment history of the galaxy. Pagel, Edmunds, & Smith (1980) and Skillman, Terlevich, & Melnick (1989) investigated the spectra of HII regions in NGC 6822, and found \[O/H\] that is intermediate between the SMC and LMC. The abundances obtained from HII regions are consistent with those measured from the absorption line spectra of bright supergiants (Muschielok et al. 1999; Venn et al. 2001). Chandar, Bianchi, & Ford (2000) discussed spectroscopic observations of HII regions outside of the central regions of NGC 6822, and found \[O/H\] that is significantly different from that measured by Pagel et al. (1980) and Skillman et al. (1989), suggesting that \[O/H\] may vary across the galaxy. Venn et al. (2001) noted that an abundance gradient is consistent with the highest quality abundance measurements in NGC 6822, but also stressed that additional data are needed to characterize with confidence the radial chemical properties of the galaxy. Chandar et al. (2000) also investigated intermediate age clusters in NGC 6822, and found metallicities that are $`0.51.0`$ dex lower than in clusters with comparable ages in the LMC and SMC. Tolstoy et al. (2001) measured the strength of the near-infrared Ca II lines in a sample of RGB stars, and found \[Fe/H\] ranging from –2 to –0.3, with a peak near \[Fe/H\] $`=0.9`$. The metallicity distribution function (MDF) constructed by Tolstoy et al. (2001) is skewed by a few tenths of a dex to lower values than the MDF of LMC giants constructed by Cole, Smecker-Hane, & Gallagher (2000), which peaks at \[Fe/H\] = $`0.57`$, with $`\overline{[Fe/H]}=0.64`$. Galaxies follow a relation between mass and metallicity that is thought to be a consequence of feedback following periods of intense star formation, and the relation predicted by Dekel & Silk (1986) predicts that the metallicities of the LMC and NGC 6822 should differ by $`0.2`$ dex, which is consistent with the observed metallicities of these systems.

In the present study, deep $`JHK`$ observations of three fields in the disk of NGC 6822 are used to measure the metallicity of red giants, and thereby provide additional insight into the chemical enrichment history of this region of the galaxy during old and intermediate epochs. The metallicity is estimated from the slope of the RGB on the $`(K,JK)`$ CMD. The slope of the RGB in infrared CMDs is insensitive to uncertainties in the reddening and the photometric calibration, and has been calibrated as a metallicity indicator using CMDs of globular clusters spanning a range of metallicities (e.g. Ferraro et al. 2000; hereafter F2000). The RGB slope is also insensitive to the age-metallicity degeneracy that complicate efforts to estimate metallicities from the color of the RGB.

NGC 6822 is viewed at a low Galactic latitude, and so there is significant extinction and contamination from foreground stars. The Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis (1998) dust maps give a foreground reddening of $`E(BV)=0.24`$ near the center of NGC 6822, and this is adopted as the baseline for the present study, although there is significant internal extinction near star forming regions in NGC 6822 (§5). A distance modulus of 23.49, which was computed from Cepheids and is consistent with the brightness of the RGB-tip (Gallart, Aparicio, & Vilchez 1996), is also adopted here.

The paper is structured as follows. The observations and reductions are described in §2, while the CMDs, luminosity functions (LF)s, and two-color diagrams (TCDs), of the fields are discussed in §3. The metallicity of the RGB is estimated from the slope of the RGB on the $`(K,JK)`$ CMD in §4. A summary and discussion of the results follows in §5.

## 2 OBSERVATIONS & REDUCTIONS

The data were recorded during the nights of September 9/10 and 10/11 2000 (UT) with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) Adapative Optics Bonnette (AOB) and KIR camera. A detailed description of the AOB, which uses natural guide stars to monitor wavefront distortions, has been given by Rigaut et al. (1998). KIR is the dedicated infrared imager for the AOB and contains a $`1024\times 1024`$ Hg:Cd:Te array, with each pixel subtending 0.034 arcsec on a side.

Three fields in the disk (i.e. outside of the bar) of NGC 6822 were imaged through $`J,H,`$ and $`K^{}`$ filters. Each field contains a moderately bright ($`R15`$) AO guide star, and the names and co-ordinates of these stars are listed in Table 1. The field locations are marked in Figure 1, which shows a portion of the Digital Sky Survey centered on NGC 6822.

Each AO guide star was positioned near the center of the KIR science field to reduce the effects of anisoplanicity near the edges of the detector. Five 60 sec exposures were recorded in each filter at the corners of a $`0.5\times 0.5`$ arcsec square dither pattern, and the total exposure time per filter is thus 60 sec $`\times `$ 5 exposures $`times`$ 4 dither positions = 1200 secs. The sky was photometric when these data were recorded, and the seeing was very good. Stars in the corrected images have FWHM = $`0.100.15`$ arcsec, and the angular resolution of the $`K^{}`$ images is the telescope diffraction limit.

The processing sequence consisted of the following steps: (1) dark subtraction, (2) division by a dome flat, which was constructed by differencing images of a dome spot taken with the dome lights on and off to remove thermal artifacts, (3) the subtraction of a calibration image to remove interference fringes and the thermal signatures of warm objects along the light path, which was constructed by combining images of different fields to suppress sky sources, and (4) the subtraction of the DC sky level, which was measured separately for each exposure. The results were aligned on a field-by-field basis to correct for the dither offsets, and then median-combined to reject cosmic rays and bad pixels. The combined images were trimmed to the region having a full 20 minute exposure time, and the final $`K^{}`$ images are shown in Figures 2, 3, and 4. The AO guide star is the bright central source in each figure, and the first diffraction ring can be seen around moderately bright stars in each of the fields.

## 3 RESULTS

### 3.1 Photometric Measurements

Stellar brightnesses were measured with the point spread function (PSF) fitting routine ALLSTAR (Stetson & Harris 1988), which is part of the DAOPHOT (Stetson 1987) photometry package. A single PSF was constructed for each field $`+`$ filter combination. While anisoplanicity causes the PSF to change with angular distance from the AO guide star, observations of globular clusters with the CFHT AOB indicate that, at least for moderate levels of AO compensation during typical Mauna Kea seeing conditions, the PSF typically changes on a characteristic angular scale that exceeds the KIR field (e.g. Davidge & Courteau 1999; Davidge 2001). The relatively large isoplanatic patch is a consequence of the superb seeing conditions on Mauna Kea, and the PSF will change over smaller angular scales at sites with poorer atmospheric conditions.

There are three pieces of evidence that justify the use of a single PSF. First, a classical signature of anisoplanicity is the radial elongation of stellar images near the field edges (McClure et al. 1991), with the major axis pointing towards the guide star, and this distortion is not seen in these data. Second, tight, well-defined CMDs are produced from these data when a uniform PSF is assumed (§3.2), demonstrating that aniosplanicity causes only moderate scatter in the photometric measurements. Third, the encircled energy curves of PSFs constructed from stars in two different radial intervals from the AO guide star in the $`K^{}`$ Field 1 data, which are shown in Figure 5, demonstrate the radial stability of the PSF. The radial intervals used to construct the encircled energy curves sample comparable areas in the KIR science field, and the PSFs were constructed from similar numbers of stars. The two curves in Figure 5 agree to within a few percent inside the PSF-fitting radius.

The photometric calibration is based on observations of UKIRT faint standard stars (Hawarden et al. 2001) that were recorded throughout the 2 night observing run. The wings of AO-corrected PSFs extend out to distances in excess of an arcsec, and so the brightnesses of the standard stars were measured in 2 arcsec radius apertures to sample as much light as possible; measurements with larger apertures were found not to contain additional signal. The uncertainty in the photometric zeropoints, computed from the residuals about the mean, is $`\pm 0.04`$ mag in $`K^{}`$. For consistency with the standard star observations, 2 arcsec radius aperture measurements of the PSF stars were used to calibrate the NGC 6822 observations. These aperture measurements were made after all stars but those used to construct the PSF were subtracted from the images. The use of large radius aperture measurements to calibrate the data greatly reduces the sensitivity to field-to-field variations in the Strehl ratio (e.g. Davidge 2002).

Artificial star experiments, in which scaled versions of the PSFs were added to the processed images using the DAOPHOT ADDSTAR routine, were run to estimate completeness and assess the scatter due to photometric errors. The artificial stars were assigned brightnesses and colors falling along the RGB ridgeline. A fixed PSF was assumed for each field, and so these simulations do not take into account anisoplanicity. The brightnesses of the artificial stars were measured using the same procedure applied to real stars in NGC 6822. These experiments indicate that incompleteness sets in at $`K=20`$ in Field 1, and $`K=20.5`$ in Fields 2 and 3, while the 50% completeness levels occur near $`K=20.5`$ in Field 1, and $`K=21.0`$ in Fields 2 and 3.

### 3.2 $`(K,HK)`$ and $`(K,JK)`$ CMDs

When compared with $`JH`$ or $`JK`$, the $`HK`$ color changes slowly with effective temperature for all but the coolest stars, and so the width of the RGB in the $`(K,HK)`$ CMD is used here as a means of constraining the uncertainties in the photometric measurements due to anisoplanicity. The $`(K,HK)`$ CMDs of the NGC 6822 fields are shown in Figure 6, and the RGB is clearly evident as a vertical sequence near $`HK=0`$. The scatter envelope predicted from the artificial star experiments is slightly smaller than the observed width of the RGB. In particular, the standard deviation in the $`HK`$ colors of stars with $`K`$ between 18 and 19 in each field is typically $`\pm 0.06`$ mag, while the dispersion predicted from the artificial star experiments in this same magnitude interval is $`\pm 0.04`$ mag. The residual scatter due to the intrinsic properties of stars in NGC 6822, differential reddening, and anisoplanaticism, which can be computed by subtracting the predicted scatter from the measured scatter in quadrature, is then $`\pm 0.04`$ mag. This indicates that anisoplanicity does not introduce scatter in the $`HK`$ colors at a level in excess of a few hundredths of a mag, and this is of the same order as the uncertainties predicted from the encircled energy curves that are compared in Figure 5.

The $`(K,JK)`$ CMDs of the three fields are compared in Figure 7. The RGB is the dominant feature in each CMD, indicating that these fields are dominated by old or intermediate age populations. While the upper RGBs of Fields 1 and 2 are not well defined, the RGB of Field 3 is curved near the bright end, indicating that RGB stars in this region of NGC 6822 are not extremely metal-poor. The onset of the RGB in all three fields occurs near $`K=17`$. Finally, given the low Galactic latitude of NGC 6822, it is likely that some of the stars on the $`(K,JK)`$ CMDs that do not fall along the RGB belong to the foreground, especially those that are redder than the RGB. Some of the objects in Fields 1 and 3 with $`JK0`$ may be bright main sequence stars in NGC 6822.

The photometric errors are largest, and hence most likely to dominate over intrinsic star-to-star differences in photometric properties, at the faint end, and there is good agreement between the predicted and observed scatter in the $`(K,JK)`$ CMDs when $`K19`$. However, at the bright end the RGB on the $`(K,JK)`$ CMD is noticeably wider than expected from photometric errors alone. A number of factors could introduce scatter in the CMD, and these include (1) the AGB, (2) differential reddening, (3) a range in metallicity, and (4) an age dispersion. Limits on age and metallicity dispersions in the disk of NGC 6822 are calculated in §4.

### 3.3 $`K`$ LFs and $`(JH,HK)`$ TCDs

The $`K`$ LFs of stars that are detected in both $`H`$ and $`K^{}`$ and have $`HK`$ colors within $`\pm 0.2`$ mag of the RGB ridgeline on the $`(K,HK)`$ CMD are shown in Figure 8. A composite LF was also created by summing the LFs of the individual fields to reduce the small number statistics that dominate the LFs of the individual fields near the RGB-tip, and the result is shown in the bottom panel of Figure 8. The LFs follow power laws at the faint end, and the method of least squares was used to fit a power-law to the entries with $`K`$ between 18 and 20 in the summed LF; this brightness interval was selected to fit the power law since it is fainter than the RGB-tip, and incompleteness is not an issue. The fitted power law has an exponent $`0.23\pm 0.06`$, which agrees with the exponents measured in Galactic globular clusters by Davidge (2000, 2001).

The $`(JH,HK)`$ TCD can be used to identify objects with non-stellar near-infrared spectral-energy distributions (SEDs), such as emission line galaxies, as well as stars with extreme SEDs, such as long period variables (LPVs). The TCDs of the three fields, corrected for foreground extinction, are shown in Figure 9. The majority of objects fall along the globular cluster giant branch sequence, which is not unexpected given that the RGB is the dominant feature in the NGC 6822 CMDs. There are also a modest number of stars that appear to be LPVs, as well as some sources with non-stellar SEDs.

## 4 THE RGB SLOPE AND METALLICITY

Small number statistics complicate efforts to track the upper portions of the RGB on CMDs, and this affects efforts to measure the slope of the RGB. Therefore, the data from all three fields were combined to better define the upper portions of the RGB. This was done by calculating normal points for each field, and then computing a mean normal point sequence for all three fields. Normal points were calculated by finding the mean $`JK`$ color in $`\pm 0.25`$ mag bins along the $`K`$ axis of each $`(K,JK)`$ CMD, with an iterative $`2.5\sigma `$ rejection scheme to suppress outliers. A single bulk shift along the $`JK`$ axis was then applied to all of the datapoints in each field such that the normal point sequence for that field best matched the mean normal point sequence. The field-to-field scatter among the normal point sequences is $`\pm 0.05`$ mag, which is comparable to the uncertainty in the $`JK`$ calibration based on the standard star measurements.

The composite (M$`{}_{K}{}^{},(JK)_0`$) CMD, assuming the reddening and distance modulus discussed in §1, is shown in the left hand panel of Figure 10. The data from the various fields are well mixed with no systematic differences near the RGB-tip, which is consistent with the three fields having similar RGB morphologies. The upper RGB is better defined than was the case from the CMDs of the individual fields, and M$`{}_{K}{}^{RGBT}6.5`$.

To suppress the effects of non-RGB stars and photometric scatter on the slope measurement, a final set of normal points was computed from the composite CMD, and the sequence defined by these normal points is shown in the middle panel of Figure 10. The slope measured from a least squares fit to the normal points is $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(JK)}{\mathrm{\Delta }K}=0.108\pm 0.007`$. This slope measurement serves as the basis for computing \[Fe/H\] in the disk of NGC 6822.

F2000 give a relation between RGB slope and metallicity in their Figure 12a that was determined from the CMDs of globular clusters spanning a range of metallicities; however, F2000 measured RGB slopes using individual CMD datapoints, rather than normal points. This is an important consideration as the use of normal points computed at uniform magnitude intervals effectively assigns each portion of the RGB equal weight when measuring the RGB slope, whereas less weight is assigned to the uppermost portion of the RGB when individual CMD points are used, since the number of stars per unit brightness interval decreases towards the RGB-tip.

Table 2 of F2000 lists the colors of various globular cluster RGBs at several MK, and these were used to calibrate the metallicity dependence of RGB slopes measured from normal points. The slopes of the clusters in the F2000 sample were measured from the entries in their Table 2, supplemented with M$`{}_{}{}^{RGBT}{}_{K}{}^{}`$ from their Table 6 and RGB-tip colors from the CMDs plotted in their Figure 1. NGC 6528 and NGC 6553 were not considered as there is significant scatter on the upper RGBs of these clusters in Figure 1 of F2000. A linear least squares fit to these slope measurements gives:

\[Fe/H\] = $`(16.95\pm 2.28)\times \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }JK}{\mathrm{\Delta }K}(2.87\pm 0.07)`$ (1)

This normal point-based calibration differs from that determined from measurements of individual stars. For example, whereas a system with \[Fe/H\] $`=0.7`$ is predicted to have $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }JK}{\mathrm{\Delta }K}=0.097`$ from the relation in Figure 12a of F2000, Equation 1 predicts that $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }JK}{\mathrm{\Delta }K}=0.128`$ for this same system.

Equation 1 indicates that \[Fe/H\] $`=1.0\pm 0.3`$ for the disk of NGC 6822, where the quoted error includes the uncertainties in the coefficients in Equation 1 and the uncertainty in the slope measurement. This metallicity can be checked using the RGB-tip brightness in $`K`$ and the color of the RGB, both of which are sensitive to metallicity.

M$`{}_{}{}^{RGBT}{}_{K}{}^{}`$ becomes brighter as \[Fe/H\] increases. Models by Girardi et al. (2000, hereafter G2000) predict that M$`{}_{K}{}^{RGBT}=5.6`$ in an old population with \[Fe/H\] $`=1.6`$, and M$`{}_{K}{}^{RGBT}=6.3`$ when \[Fe/H\] $`=0.6`$. The empirical calibration of F2000 gives slightly brighter RGB-tip values, with M$`{}_{K}{}^{RGBT}=6.0`$ and M$`{}_{K}{}^{RGBT}=6.6`$ for globular clusters with \[Fe/H\] $`=1.6`$ and $`0.7`$. The G2000 models also predict that at a fixed metallicity M$`{}_{}{}^{RGBT}{}_{K}{}^{}`$ becomes fainter as age decreases, although the differences in M$`{}_{}{}^{RGBT}{}_{K}{}^{}`$ due to age are relatively modest compared with those due to metallicity; for example, between t = 16 Gyr and 3 Gyr the z=0.001 (i.e. \[Fe/H\] $`=1.2`$) G2000 models predict that M$`{}_{}{}^{RGBT}{}_{K}{}^{}`$ dims by only 0.2 mag. The F2000 calibration predicts that M$`{}_{K}{}^{RGBT}=6.4\pm 0.2`$ for an old system with \[Fe/H\] $`=1.0\pm 0.3`$, which agrees with the RGB-tip brightness measured for the disk of NGC 6822.

While the $`K`$ brightness of the RGB-tip in the disk of NGC 6822 is consistent with the measured metallicity, the RGB ridgeline is bluer than expected for an old, \[Fe/H\] $`=1`$ population. This is demonstrated in the middle panel of Figure 10, where the RGB sequences of 47 Tuc (\[Fe/H\] $`=0.7`$), NGC 6121 (\[Fe/H\] $`=1.2`$), and NGC 7078 (\[Fe/H\] $`=2.1`$) from F2000 are compared with the NGC 6822 normal point sequence. The NGC 6822 giant branch falls blueward of both the 47 Tuc and NGC 6121 sequences, even though the metallicity estimated from the RGB slope falls midway between the metallicities of these clusters. This color offset may indicate that RGB stars in NGC 6822 and globular clusters have different ages, in the sense that stars in NGC 6822 are younger.

The age sensitivity of RGB sequences is investigated in the right hand panel of Figure 10, which shows z = 0.001 isochrones of G2000 for populations with log(tGyr) = 9.3, 9.6, 9.9, and 10.2. The NGC 6822 sequence in Figure 10 falls $`0.1`$ mag blueward of the expected location for an old stellar system having the same metallicity, and this is consistent with the RGB stars in NGC 6822 having a typical age of $`3`$ Gyr if globular clusters have ages $`10`$ Gyr. Such a relatively young age for RGB stars in NGC 6822 is consistent with a star-forming history that is not weighted towards early epochs, but in which there has been significant recent star formation.

An age difference between NGC 6822 and globular clusters will have only a modest impact on the metallicity estimated from the RGB slope, and the G2000 isochrones in the right hand panel of Figure 10 can be used to quantify any age-related systematic effects. To simulate the process used to create the NGC 6822 normal points, the isochrones were sampled at 0.5 mag increments in MK, and the slopes measured from the results when M$`{}_{K}{}^{}3`$ are summarized in Table 2, along with the \[Fe/H\] computed from Equation 1. The isochrones are steeper than the giant branches of actual clusters having the same metallicity, and this has been noted in other model sequences (e.g. Davidge 2000). The absolute calibration of the metallicity scale notwithstanding, the metallicities computed from the log(t) = 9.3 and 10.2 sequences differ by only 0.16 dex, whereas the metallicities computed from the log(t) = 9.6 and 10.2 isochrones differ by only 0.05 dex. Therefore, if RGB stars in NGC 6822 have a typical age of 3 Gyr, then the metallicity from the RGB slope may be underestimated by $`0.05`$ dex, which is smaller than the random uncertainies in the metallicity estimate.

The disk of NGC 6822 likely contains stars spanning a range of ages and metallicities, and constraints on possible age and metallicity dispersions can be estimated from the scatter in the composite CMD on the upper portion of the RGB. The RGB at M$`{}_{K}{}^{}=5.5`$ is well populated, and so the width of the CMD near this point is used to set constraints on any age and/or metallicity spread in the disk of NGC 6822. The standard deviation in $`(JK)_0`$ of stars with MK between –5.4 and –5.6 is $`\pm 0.07`$ mag. The artificial star experiments indicate that photometric errors contribute a $`\pm 0.03`$ mag scatter in $`JK`$ at this brightness. After subtracting this contribution in quadrature from the observed color dispersion there then remains $`\pm 0.06`$ mag scatter in $`(JK)_0`$ that is not due to photometric errors. Comparisons with the F2000 globular cluster sequences indicate that this range in color could result from a $`\pm 0.2`$ dex metallicity spread, while the G2000 isochrones indicate that a $`\pm 0.5`$ dex spread in log(tGyr) could also explain the observed scatter. The actual spreads in age and metallicity in the disk of NGC 6822 will of course be smaller than these values, as there is likely a dispersion in both age and metallicity. In addition, differential reddening and anisoplanicity may also contribute to the width of the RGB.

## 5 DISCUSSION & SUMMARY

The slope of the RGB on the $`(K,JK)`$ CMD indicates that RGB stars in the disk of the Local Group dIrr galaxy NGC 6822 have a typical metallicity \[Fe/H\] $`=1.0\pm 0.3`$. This agrees with the mean metallicity measured for giants by Tolstoy et al. (2001) from the strength of the near-infrared Ca II absorption lines. The agreement between the metallicities determined from the RGB slope and the Ca II lines is noteworthy, as they are based on independent datasets that have different sensitivities to factors such as reddening and chemical mixture.

Internal reddening is significant in some parts of NGC 6822. Multicolor observations of massive stars indicate that $`E(BV)`$ varies between 0.25 and 0.45 (Bianchi et al. 2001); for comparison, Wilson (1992) finds that $`E(BV)=0.45`$, which is much higher than the foreground value, based on the ridgeline of upper main sequence stars. Internal reddening is highest near star-forming regions, and studies of the colors of young stars with known spectral types suggest that there is a systematic reddening gradient in NGC 6822, such that $`E(BV)=0.45`$ near the middle of the galaxy, which is the most active star-forming region, and $`E(BV)=0.26`$ at the periphery (Massey et al. 1995). This is qualitatively consistent with what was measured by Wyder (2001), who found that $`E(BV)=0.34`$ near the bar and $`E(BV)=0.23`$ in the disk. These studies thus indicate that foreground dust is the dominant source of reddening in the disk of NGC 6822.

The RGB slope determined from the $`(K,JK)`$ CMD is a relative measurement made from a self-contained dataset, and hence is not sensitive to the mean line-of-sight reddening, although differential reddening will smear the RGB, and complicate efforts to define the RGB ridgeline. The metallicity estimated from Ca II line strengths is moderately sensitive to the line-of-sight reddening. The relative $`V`$ brightness of RGB stars with respect to the horizontal branch (HB) is used to correct for surface gravity effects in Ca II line strengths (e.g. Armandroff & Da Costa 1991) and, lacking deep photometry, Tolstoy et al. (2001) adopted a single HB brightness with only the foreground reddening value. The Tolstoy et al. (2001) field includes the bar, so some of the stars may be subject to reddening that exceeds the foreground value. By adopting a fixed HB brightness, Tolstoy et al. (2001) underestimated the metallicities of these stars. For RGB stars outside of active star-forming regions this effect will not be large; however, for stars with $`E(BV)=0.45`$, which appears to be the upper limit of line-of-sight reddening in NGC 6822, the metallicity computed by Tolstoy et al (2001) is be 0.16 dex too low. The main consequence is that the mean metallicity found by Tolstoy et al. (2001) is a lower limit, while the metallicity dispersion determined from their data ($`\pm 0.5`$ dex, compared with $`\pm 0.2`$ dex from the width of the RGB in §4) is an upper limit.

The use of the Ca II lines to measure \[Fe/H\] assumes that the \[Ca/Fe\] ratio matches that of the globular clusters that are used to define the metallicity calibration. This assumption may not hold, as the chemical enrichment history of galaxies that have experienced star formation, and hence chemical enrichment, over a large fraction of the age of the Universe, will liklely have been systematically different from that of globular clusters. For comparison, the overall photometric properties of the RGB, including the slope, are affected by the total metal content, rather than that of a single species.

When applied to systems more distant than the Milky-Way and its immediate companions, metallicities based on the RGB slope and Ca II line strengths rely on observations of stars that are relatively faint, and hence may be susceptible to large photometric errors and systematic effects introduced by crowding. For example, the RGB must be traced down to the HB to measure the RGB slope. However, the fields studied here are in the low density outer regions of NGC 6822, and are not susceptible to crowding. In fact, each of the fields contain $`200300`$ stars on the upper 4 mag in $`K`$ of the RGB, so that the stellar density is $`0.2`$ stars arcsec-2, or only 0.004 stars per angular resolution element, as defined by the FWHM of the PSF.

The metallicity calibration used in the current paper assumes that RGB stars in NGC 6822 have ages comparable to those of globular clusters. In §4 it is argued, based on the color of the RGB, that the majority of RGB stars in the NGC 6822 disk have an age of roughly 3 Gyr. While the model isochrones shown in the right hand panel of Figure 10 indicate that the slope of the RGB on the $`(K,JK)`$ CMD is not sensitive to age at a fixed metallicity, if subsequent photometric measurements verify the relatively young ages of RGB stars in NGC 6822 then the metallicity derived from Equation 1 will be $`0.05`$ dex too low.

The giant branch in the composite NGC 6822 CMD of Fields 1, 2, and 3 is actually a mix of AGB and RGB stars, and the presence of AGB stars may affect the slope measurement and the color of the RGB locus. A distinct AGB sequence is not seen in the CMDs, because photometric errors blend the AGB and RGB. Nevertheless, the AGB has bluer colors than the RGB, with the color difference between the AGB and RGB decreasing towards the RGB-tip. Therefore, AGB stars may systematically bias the slope measurement and shift the RGB locus to bluer colors. While we have not attempted the difficult task of quantifying the effects of AGB contamination on the color and slope of the RGB, it should be noted that the number of AGB stars in a given brightness interval is much lower than that of RGB stars ($`\frac{n_{AGB}}{n_{RGB}}0.25`$), and the iterative rejection technique used to compute the normal points will reject objects with obvious outlying colors.

AGB stars could also cause the brightness of the RGB-tip to be over-estimated. This issue can be investigated by comparing the observed number of stars in a given brightness interval with those expected from a combined RGB$`+`$AGB population, which occurs below the RGB-tip, and a pure AGB population, which occurs above the RGB-tip. The dotted line in the lower panel of Figure 8 shows the expected number counts from a pure AGB population. This sequence was created by shifting the power-law derived in §3.3 from faint RGB stars along the vertical axis to represent a population that has 20% of the total number of faint RGB $`+`$ AGB stars. When $`K>16.8`$ (M$`{}_{K}{}^{}>6.8`$) each entry in the composite LF consistently falls above the AGB trend, as expected if these stars are a mix of AGB and RGB stars, rather than only AGB stars. This comparison supports the adopted RGB-tip brightness of M$`{}_{K}{}^{}=6.5`$ that was measured in §4.

We close by noting that Muschielok et al. (1999) and Venn et al. (2001) conclude that \[Fe/H\] $`=0.5\pm 0.2`$ in bright NGC 6822 supergiants. These stars are considerably younger than RGB stars, for which \[Fe/H\] $`=1.0\pm 0.3`$ based on the RGB slope. The present data thus suggest that RGB stars are $`0.5\pm 0.4`$ dex more metal-poor than the youngest stars in NGC 6822. If the dominant RGB population has an age of 3 Gyr then these data indicate that $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }[Fe/H]}{\mathrm{\Delta }t}=0.2\pm 0.1`$ dex Gyr-1 since intermediate epochs in the disk of NGC 6822.

FIGURE CAPTIONS


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# Linear theory of nonlocal transport in a magnetized plasma

## I Introduction

Nonlocal transport theories remain the subject of active studies in plasma physics especially in laser produced plasmas. The strong dependence of the collisional mean-free-path on the particle kinetic energy limits the validity of standard local transport relations to very long inhomogeneity scale lengths $`L`$. The value of $`L`$ has to be at least a hundred times longer than the electron-ion mean-free-path, $`\lambda _{ei}`$, for the Chapman-Enskog perturbative approach braginskii  to be valid bychenkov0 . This condition can be easily violated in most of the hot plasmas produced by high energy lasers. Likewise, many magnetized plasmas in laboratory marchand  and astrophysics require kinetic modeling because of the large values of $`\lambda _{ei}/L`$. In the presence of a strong magnetic field electron transport can be localized in the transverse direction by the short gyroradius, $`\rho `$. Therefore, often only nonlocal transport in response to longitudinal gradients is considered (cf. e.g. chang ). We will show that for an arbitrary direction of the gradient, longitudinal transport coefficients are affected by the magnetic field in the nonlocal transport regime.

Nonlocality of thermal transport has been well documented in experiments. For example, no agreement was found between theory and experiment for time-resolved two-dimensional images of x-ray emissions montgomery ; nicolai  until nonlocal electron transport was included. It is also clear that self-generated magnetic fields play an important role in the evolution of laser fusion plasmas glenzer . These observations have motivated our current study, which also complements previous works on magnetized plasmas chang ; snyder ; silin  in the regime of weak collisionality.

We have applied the method of Ref. bychenkov  to derive nonlocal closure relations for a plasma with a magnetic field. The result is equivalent to the linearized kinetic theory of small amplitude perturbations. Our derivation involves a solution to the initial value problem for the electron kinetic equation with electron-electron (e-e) and electron-ion (e-i) Landau collision operators. The linearized kinetic equation is solved in the Fourier $`𝐤`$-vector space for slowly varying processes. We use approximations which make our results correct for high-$`Z`$ plasmas. We have neglected e-e collisions in the equation for the anisotropic part of the electron distribution function. Electron-electron collisions are only kept in the equation for the isotropic part of the distribution function which is unaffected by e-i collisions. In addition, the anisotropic part of the electron distribution function (EDF) is approximated by a single angular harmonic. This corresponds to the so called linearized diffusive Fokker-Planck model bernstein ; albritton ; brunner . The original study bychenkov  of an unmagnetized plasma employed a summation technique luciani ; epperlein , which included an infinite set of angular harmonics and thus ensured validity of the transport theory over the entire range of particle collisionality including collisionless limit. Here, because of the geometrical complexity introduced by the magnetic field we are unable to carry the summation over the infinite set of harmonics. Therefore our results are applicable to an inhomogeneity scale length corresponding to $`𝐤`$-vectors such that $`k_{}\rho <1`$ and $`k_{}\lambda _{ei}<1`$, where $`k_{}`$ and $`k_{}`$ are wave vector components with respect to the direction of the magnetic field. However, in the case where the spatial gradients are almost orthogonal to the direction of magnetic field our theory is valid even for $`k\lambda _{ei}>1`$ provided $`k\lambda _{ei}<\lambda _{ei}/\rho `$. The validity condition $`k_{}\lambda _{ei}<1`$ is more relevant to dense plasmas as for example in inertial confinement fusion targets. Finally the closure relations derived in this paper apply to small amplitude perturbations of temperature, density and electric field about the homogeneous equilibrium state. A rigorous generalization of these results to nonlocal and nonlinear transport theory is a difficult problem. One possible solution, batishchev  is based on linear theory results for varying in space background parameters. One can also gain a valuable insight into validity of different phenomenological models reproducing Fokker-Planck simulation results as in Ref. nicolai .

An important difference between the nonlocal theory of unmagnetized plasmas bychenkov  and that for magnetized plasmas is that one now deals with three different components of the electron flux: longitudinal, transverse, and oblique. All of these are calculated here in the Fourier-space and are related by closure relations to perturbations in the temperature, density and electric field. Hydrodynamical variables have been defined in such a way that in strongly collisional limit we recover classical local results of the Chapman-Enskog method braginskii  .

The paper is organized as follows. Section II presents a linearized solution to the kinetic FP equation for the EDF in a magnetized plasma. In Sec. III we use this solution to derive the nonlocal electron flux. The strongly collisional limit is examined in Sec. IV. Section V is devoted to study of nonlocal transport coefficients and their dependence on the collisionality parameter and the Hall parameter. Nonlocal hydrodynamic equations for small perturbations are formulated in Sec. VI and are used to derive dispersion relations and damping of MHD waves. In Sec. VII we apply our transport theory to study of the hot spot temperature relaxation in the context of laser produced plasma with a self-generated magnetic field. We conclude with a discussion and summary in Sec. VIII.

## II Electron distribution function in a magnetized plasma

We start from the standard electron kinetic equation for the EDF, $`f_e`$, in a high-Z plasma placed in a homogeneous magnetic field $`𝐁`$

$$\frac{f_e}{t}+𝐯\frac{f_e}{𝐫}\frac{e}{m_e}\left(𝐄+\frac{1}{c}[𝐯\times 𝐁]\right)\frac{f_e}{𝐯}=C_{ei}[f_e]+C_{ee}[f_e,f_e],$$
(1)
where $`𝐄`$ is the electric field, $`c`$ is the speed of light, $`e`$ and $`m_e`$ are the electron charge and electron mass, $`C_{ei}[f_e]`$ and $`C_{ee}[f_e,f_e]`$ are electron -ion and electron -electron collision terms shkarofsky .

Following the previous study bychenkov , we develop a new nonlocal transport theory of a magnetized plasma which describes the plasma response to small–amplitude perturbations. The EDF, $`f_e`$, is written as the sum of Maxwellian function, $`F_0`$, (with homogeneous background electron density $`n_e`$ and temperature $`T_e`$) and an isotropic perturbation, $`\delta f_0`$, and an anisotropic perturbation, $`\delta f_{an}`$: $`f_e=F_0+\delta f_0(v)+\delta f_{an}(𝐯)`$. Small amplitude linear perturbations are described in terms of Fourier components characterized by the wave vector $`𝐤`$. The linearized kinetic equation (1) gives two coupled equations for the perturbed EDFs, $`\delta f_0`$ and $`\delta f_{an}`$, in $`𝐤`$-space

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta f_0}{t}}+i<𝐤𝐯f_{an}>{\displaystyle \frac{i}{3}}(𝐤𝐮)v{\displaystyle \frac{F_0}{v}}=C_{ee}[\delta f_0,F_0];`$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta f_{an}}{t}}+[𝛀\times 𝐯]{\displaystyle \frac{\delta f_{an}}{𝐯}}+i𝐤𝐯f_{an}i<𝐤𝐯f_{an}>C_{ei}[f_{an}]=`$ (3)
$`i𝐤𝐯f_0+{\displaystyle \frac{e\stackrel{~}{𝐄}}{m_e}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_0}{𝐯}}+i\left[(𝐤𝐯)(𝐮𝐯){\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(𝐤𝐮)v^2\right]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{v}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_0}{v}},`$
where $`𝐮`$ is the velocity of an ion flow, $`\mathrm{\Omega }=eB/m_ec`$ is the electron gyrofrequency, brackets $`<\mathrm{}>`$ denote the averaging over angles defining the orientation of the velocity vector $`𝐯`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{𝐄}=𝐄+𝐮\times 𝐁/c`$. We have neglected electron-electron collisions in Eq. (3) because they play a smaller role compared to electron-ion collisions in the evolution of an anisotropic distribution function in a high-Z plasma.

We introduce a unit vector $`𝐛=𝐁/B`$ in the direction of the magnetic field. Three components of a vector $`𝐀`$ can be defined with respect to $`𝐛`$ in the following manner: $`𝐀_{}=𝐛(𝐀𝐛)`$, $`𝐀_{}=𝐛\times 𝐀`$, and $`𝐀_{}=𝐛\times [𝐀\times 𝐛]`$. Assuming long wavelength perturbations such that $`𝐤_{}𝐯\mathrm{max}(\mathrm{\Omega },\nu _{ei})`$, $`𝐤_{}𝐯\nu _{ei}`$ and slow time variations $`/t\mathrm{\Omega }`$ the solution to Eq. (3) for the anisotropic part of the EDF reads (cf. Ref. silin )

$`\delta f_{an}=i\delta f_0\left[{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}v_{}}{\nu _{ei}}}+\mathrm{\Omega }{\displaystyle \frac{𝐤_{}𝐯}{\nu _{ei}^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2}}+\nu _{ei}{\displaystyle \frac{𝐤_{}𝐯}{\nu _{ei}^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2}}\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{eF_0}{T_e}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{E}_{}v_{}}{\nu _{ei}}}+\mathrm{\Omega }{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{𝐄}_{}𝐯}{\nu _{ei}^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2}}+\nu _{ei}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{𝐄}_{}𝐯}{\nu _{ei}^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2}}\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{iF_0}{v_{Te}^2}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3\nu _{ei}}}((𝐤_{}𝐯)(𝐮_{}𝐯)+(𝐤_{}𝐯)(𝐮_{}𝐯){\displaystyle \frac{v^2}{3}}𝐤𝐮)+`$ (4)
$`v_{}{\displaystyle \frac{3\nu _{ei}(u_{}(𝐤_{}𝐯)+k_{}(𝐮_{}𝐯))\mathrm{\Omega }(u_{}(𝐤_{}𝐯)+k_{}(𝐮_{}𝐯))}{9\nu _{ei}^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2}}+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3\nu _{ei}\mathrm{\Omega }((𝐤_{}𝐯)(𝐮_{}𝐯)(𝐤_{}𝐯)(𝐮_{}𝐯))+2\mathrm{\Omega }^2((𝐤_{}𝐯)(𝐮_{}𝐯)+(𝐤_{}𝐯)(𝐮_{}𝐯))}{3\nu _{ei}(9\nu _{ei}^2+4\mathrm{\Omega }^2)}}],`$
where $`\nu _{ei}=4\pi Zn_ee^4\mathrm{\Lambda }/m_e^2v^3`$ is the velocity–dependent electron–ion collision frequency, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the Coulomb logarithm. Expression (4) has been derived in the approximation, which corresponds to the so-called diffusive limit of the Fokker-Planck equation \[cf. e.g. (brunner )\]. This amounts to keeping only leading terms in the angular expansion of $`\delta f_{an}`$ as discussed in Ref. (silin ). Such approximation may always be justified by invoking a sufficiently large $`Z`$ and magnetic field values for the conditions $`k_{}Max\{\rho ,\lambda _{ei}\}<1`$ and $`k_{}\lambda _{ei}<1`$ to be satisfied. By substituting $`\delta f_{an}`$ (4) into Eq. (3), we obtain an equation for the isotropic perturbation $`\delta f_0`$

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta f_0}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{v^2}{3}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{\nu _{ei}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2\nu _{ei}}{\nu _{ei}^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2}}\right]\left(\delta f_0{\displaystyle \frac{ie(\stackrel{~}{𝐄}𝐤)F_0}{k^2T_e}}\right)=`$ (5)
$`=C_{ee}[\delta f_0,F_0]i𝐤𝐮{\displaystyle \frac{m_ev^2}{3T_e}}F_0+{\displaystyle \frac{ieF_0v^2\mathrm{\Omega }}{3T_e(\nu _{ei}^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2)}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{𝐤_{}[\stackrel{~}{𝐄}\times 𝐤]k_{}\mathrm{\Omega }}{k^2\nu _{ei}}}+𝐤\stackrel{~}{𝐄}_{}\right].`$
To derive nonlocal transport relations, we follow the method of Ref. bychenkov  and first solve an initial value problem for Eq. (5). In a weakly collisional plasma the perturbation at $`t=0`$ provides a driver for transport processes. We postulate the initial $`\delta f_0`$ to be the linearized Maxwellian EDF, which is defined by density and temperature perturbations $`\delta n_e_{t=0}\delta n(0)`$ and $`\delta T_e_{t=0}\delta T(0)`$,

$$\delta f_0(v,0)=\left[\frac{\delta n(0)}{n_e}+\frac{\delta T(0)}{T_e}\left(\frac{v^2}{2v_{Te}^2}\frac{3}{2}\right)\right]F_0(v)$$
(6)
With the initial condition (6), a solution to Eq. (5) for $`\delta f_0`$ is expressed in terms of the basic functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }^A`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta f_0}{F_0}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ie(\stackrel{~}{𝐄}𝐤)}{k^2T_e}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta n(0)}{n_e}}\mathrm{\Psi }^N+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta T(0)}{T_e}}\mathrm{\Psi }^Ti𝐤𝐮\mathrm{\Psi }^u+`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{ie𝐤_{}[\stackrel{~}{𝐄}\times 𝐤]k_{}}{k^4T_e}}\mathrm{\Psi }^{E_1}+{\displaystyle \frac{ie𝐤\stackrel{~}{𝐄}_{}}{k^2T_e}}\mathrm{\Psi }^{E_2},`$
where $`\delta f_0`$ (II) depends on four parameters: $`\delta n(0)`$, $`\delta T(0)`$, $`𝐮`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{𝐄}`$. The ion flow velocity can be determined from a simple hydrodynamical model for cold ions and the field $`\stackrel{~}{𝐄}`$ is usually evaluated from the quasineutrality condition. The solution given by Eq. (II) allows elimination of initial perturbations $`\delta n(0)`$, $`\delta T(0)`$ in terms of their current values by taking moments of $`\delta f_0`$. To do so and to proceed with closure relations for higher order moments we must find basic functions which satisfy the following equation with different source terms, $`S_A`$:

$$\frac{v^2}{3}\left[\frac{k_{}^2}{\nu _{ei}}+\frac{k_{}^2\nu _{ei}}{\nu _{ei}^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2}\right]\mathrm{\Psi }^A\frac{1}{F_0}C_{ee}[\mathrm{\Psi }^A,F_0]=S_A.$$
(8)
Sources on the right hand side of Eq. (8) are defined as follows $`S_N=1,S_T=v^2/3v_{Te}^21`$, $`S_u=S_N+S_T`$, $`S_{E_1}=S_{}S_{}`$, $`S_{E_2}=S_{}`$ and $`S_a=k^2v^2/3\nu _a`$, where the subscript $`a`$ assumes the values $``$, $``$, and $``$. The effective longitudinal and transverse collision frequencies read as follows

$$\nu _{}=\nu _{ei},\nu _{}=(\nu _{ei}^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2)/\nu _{ei},\nu _{}=(\nu _{ei}^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2)/\mathrm{\Omega }.$$
(9)
Expressions (9) have been introduced following the standard definitions used in Ref. braginskii .

As already stated, we can use Eq. (II) to calculate hydrodynamic moments such as density and temperature perturbations

$`\delta n_e=4\pi {\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑vv^2\delta f_0,`$ (10)
$`\delta T_e={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi m_e}{3n_e}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑vv^2(v^23v_{Te}^2)\delta f_0.`$
and employ them to eliminate $`\delta n(0)`$ and $`\delta T(0)`$ from Eq. (II). As a result, the EDF is expressed in terms of its instantaneous hydrodynamic moments $`\delta n_e`$ and $`\delta T_e`$ and vectors $`𝐮`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{𝐄}`$ as independent generalized thermodynamic forces. Moreover, because of the approximation $`k_{}\lambda _{ei}1`$ we have found that ion flow does not contribute to $`\delta f_0`$ explicitly. This has not been the case for short wavelength perturbations, $`k_{}\lambda _{ei}1`$ in studies of unmagnetized plasmas (cf. bychenkov ). The cancellation of terms containing $`𝐮`$ in the expression for $`\delta f_0`$ occurs because of the specific form of equation (8), which defines $`\mathrm{\Psi }^u`$ as a linear combination of $`\mathrm{\Psi }^N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }^T`$. Thus, the distribution function $`\delta f_0`$ can be expressed in terms of the velocity moments of the basic functions, $`J_A^B=(4\pi /n_e)_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑vv^2\mathrm{\Psi }^BS_AF_0`$, as follows:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta f_0}{F_0}}={\displaystyle \frac{ie(\stackrel{~}{𝐄}𝐤)}{k^2T_e}}+{\displaystyle \frac{ie(\stackrel{~}{𝐄}^{}𝐤)}{k^2T_e}}{\displaystyle \frac{J_T^T\mathrm{\Psi }^NJ_T^N\mathrm{\Psi }^T}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta T_e}{T_e}}{\displaystyle \frac{(J_N^N+J_N^T)\mathrm{\Psi }^T(J_N^T+J_T^T)\mathrm{\Psi }^N}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{ie𝐤_{}[\stackrel{~}{𝐄}\times 𝐤]k_{}}{k^4T_e}}\times `$ (11)
$`\left[\mathrm{\Psi }^{E_1}{\displaystyle \frac{D_{NT}^{E_1T}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}\psi ^N{\displaystyle \frac{D_{TN}^{E_1N}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}\psi ^T\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{ie𝐤\stackrel{~}{𝐄}_{}}{k^2T_e}}\left[\mathrm{\Psi }^{E_2}{\displaystyle \frac{D_{NT}^{E_2T}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}\psi ^N{\displaystyle \frac{D_{TN}^{E_2N}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}\psi ^T\right],`$
where $`D_{AB}^{CD}=J_A^CJ_B^DJ_A^DJ_B^C`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{𝐄}^{}=\stackrel{~}{𝐄}+i𝐤(T_e/e)(\delta T_e/T_e+\delta n_e/n_e)`$ is the effective electric field which has been introduced in both, classical braginskii  and nonlocal bychenkov  transport theories.

## III Nonlocal electron fluxes

The expression for an anisotropic part of the EDF (4) is used to calculate electron fluxes: the electric current, $`𝐣`$, and the heat flux, $`𝐪`$,

$`𝐣=e{\displaystyle 𝑑\mathrm{𝐯𝐯}f_e},𝐪=T_e{\displaystyle 𝑑\mathrm{𝐯𝐯}\left(\frac{5}{2}\frac{v^2}{2v_{Te}^2}\right)f_e}.`$ (12)
Terms proportional to the ion velocity, $`𝐮`$, in Eq. (4) do not contribute to electron fluxes (12). This is due to the approximation $`k_{}\lambda _{ei}1`$. Equations (12) ignores in fact small contributions $`u\times O(k_{}^2\lambda _{ei}^2)`$.

Closure relations for the electric current density and the electron heat flux (12) have the same form as local transport relations braginskii  in strongly collisional plasmas. They involve linear combination of Fourier components of an effective electric field $`𝐄^{}`$ and a temperature gradient $`(T)_𝐤=i𝐤\delta T_e`$,

$`𝐣`$ $`=`$ $`𝝈\stackrel{~}{𝐄}^{}++i𝜶^𝒋𝐤\delta T_e+\widehat{𝝈}\stackrel{~}{𝐄},`$
$`𝐪`$ $`=`$ $`𝜶^𝒒\stackrel{~}{𝐄}^{}+i𝐤𝝌\delta T_e+\widehat{𝜶}\stackrel{~}{𝐄}.`$ (13)
However, the two transport matrices, $`\widehat{𝝈}`$ and $`\widehat{𝜶}`$ have no counterparts in the local relations braginskii . Both coefficients vanish in the limit of $`k0`$. The transport coefficients in (III) are: electric conductivity tensors $`𝝈`$, thermoelectric tensors $`𝜶`$ and temperature conductivity tensors $`𝝌`$. They are defined as follows ($`c=j,q`$)

$`𝝈=(\begin{array}{ccc}\sigma _{}& \sigma _{}& 0\\ \sigma _{}& \sigma _{}& 0\\ 0& 0& \sigma _{}\end{array})𝜶^𝒄=(\begin{array}{ccc}\alpha _{}^c& \alpha _{}^c& 0\\ \alpha _{}^c& \alpha _{}^c& 0\\ 0& 0& \alpha _{}^c\end{array})𝝌=(\begin{array}{ccc}\chi _{}& \chi _{}& 0\\ \chi _{}& \chi _{}& 0\\ 0& 0& \chi _{}\end{array})`$ (23)
$`\widehat{𝝈}=(\begin{array}{ccc}\sigma _{11}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}& \sigma _{12}& \sigma _{11}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}k_{}}{k^2}}\\ \sigma _{21}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}& \sigma _{22}& \sigma _{21}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}k_{}}{k^2}}\\ \sigma _{11}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}k_{}}{k^2}}& \sigma _{12}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}}{k}}& \sigma _{11}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\end{array})\widehat{𝜶}=(\begin{array}{ccc}\alpha _{11}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}& \alpha _{12}& \alpha _{11}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}k_{}}{k^2}}\\ \alpha _{21}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}& \alpha _{22}& \alpha _{21}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}k_{}}{k^2}}\\ \alpha _{31}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}k_{}}{k^2}}& \alpha _{32}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}}{k}}& \alpha _{31}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\end{array})`$ (30)
where $`𝐤=(k_{},0,k_{})`$. Explicit expressions for these coefficients are given in Appendix A. All nonlocal transport coefficients (50) are functions of the wave vector and can be calculated by using solutions to the equations for the basic functions (8).

Equations (III) represent the main results of our theory. They define constitutive relations for electron fluxes in terms of thermodynamic forces. Transport relations (III) are linear in the temperature gradient and in a generalized field, similarly to local relations of the collision dominated hydrodynamics braginskii . The nonlocality of expressions (III) is displayed in terms of convolutions in the configurational space involving temperature gradient and generalized electric field, and kernels which are defined by the set of nonlocal transport coefficients. This new form of transport theory generalizes previous results bychenkov  by including magnetic field effects. The interplay between weakly collisional and magnetic field effects on transport theory is still poorly understood. However it can play an important role in the hydrodynamical evolution of laser produced plasmas as was demonstrated by the numerical simulations in Ref. nicolai .

The transport coefficients (50) depend on the following set of parameters: $`k_{}\lambda _{ei}`$, $`k_{}\rho `$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T`$, and $`Z`$, where $`\rho =v_{Te}/\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the electron Larmor radius and $`\nu _{ei}^T=\sqrt{2/9\pi }\nu _{ei}(v_{Te})v_{Te}/\lambda _{ei}`$ is the electron–ion collision frequency for thermal electrons braginskii . In Sec. V the equivalent set of independent parameters: $`k\lambda _{ei}`$ (nonlocality parameter), $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T`$ (Hall parameter), $`k_{}/k_{}`$, and $`Z`$ (ionic charge) will be used.

## IV Transport theory of a strongly collisional plasma

As a benchmark test for our transport theory we first consider the limit of strong collisions, i.e. $`Zk^2\lambda _{ei}^21`$. In this limit the basic functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }^A`$ $`(A=N,T,u,E_1,E_2)`$ have the following form

$$\mathrm{\Psi }^A=\frac{\lambda _{ei}}{v_{Te}}\left[c_0^A+c_1^A\left(\frac{v^2}{3v_{Te}^2}1\right)\right].$$
(31)
Expression (31) corresponds to a two polynomial approximation to the Laguerre polynomial series expansion of the symmetrical part of the EDF bychenkov0 . Coefficients $`c_0^A`$ and $`c_1^A`$ are found from the solution to Eq. (8) in the Lorentz plasma approximation. From the moments of the EDF, $`J_A^B`$, we can evaluate transport coefficients (50),

$`\sigma _a=\sigma _a^0={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi e^2}{k^2T_e}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑vv^2S_aF_0,\alpha _a^j=\alpha _a^q=\alpha _a^0={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi e}{k^2T_e}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑vv^2S_{q_a}F_0,`$
$`\chi _a={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{k^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑vv^2S_{q_a}\left({\displaystyle \frac{v^2}{2v_{Te}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{5}{2}}\right)F_0,\widehat{𝝈}=0,\widehat{𝜶}=0,`$ (32)
where $`S_{q_a}=k^2v^2(v^2/v_{Te}^25)/6\nu _a`$ ($`a=`$, $``$, and $``$) and the effective collision frequencies, $`\nu _a`$, are given by Eq. (9). With expressions (32), the electron fluxes (III) assume the standard form:

$`𝐣={\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}\sigma _a\stackrel{~}{𝐄}_a+{\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}\alpha _ai𝐤_a\delta T_e,`$ (33)
$`𝐪={\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}\alpha _aT_e\stackrel{~}{𝐄}_a^{}{\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}\chi _ai𝐤_a\delta T_e.`$ (34)
As expected, longitudinal transport coefficients ($`a=`$) do not depend on the magnetic field and correspond to the Spitzer–H$`\ddot{a}`$rm (SH) result without magnetic field.

In the absence of a magnetic field ($`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$) all transverse and longitudinal transport coefficients are equal. The oblique coefficients are proportional to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, i.e.

$$\sigma _{}^0=\frac{70e^2n_e\mathrm{\Omega }}{\pi m_e\nu _{ei}^{T}{}_{}{}^{2}},\alpha _{}^0=\frac{210en_e\mathrm{\Omega }}{\pi m_e\nu _{ei}^{T}{}_{}{}^{2}},\chi _{}=\frac{1015n_eT_e\mathrm{\Omega }}{\pi m_e\nu _{ei}^{T}{}_{}{}^{2}}.$$
(35)
In the limit of a strong magnetic field $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{}`$, transverse and oblique transport coefficients behave as $`1/\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$ and $`1/\mathrm{\Omega }`$, correspondingly,

$`\sigma _{}^0={\displaystyle \frac{e^2n_e\nu _{ei}^T}{m_e\mathrm{\Omega }^2}},\alpha _{}^0={\displaystyle \frac{3en_e\nu _{ei}^T}{2m_e\mathrm{\Omega }^2}},\chi _{}={\displaystyle \frac{13n_eT_e\nu _{ei}^T}{4m_e\mathrm{\Omega }^2}},`$ (36)
$`\sigma _{}^0={\displaystyle \frac{e^2n_e}{m_e\mathrm{\Omega }}}\left[1\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^4\nu _{ei}^{T}{}_{}{}^{5}}{6\mathrm{\Omega }^5}}\right)^{1/3}\right],\alpha _{}^0={\displaystyle \frac{5\pi en_e}{2m_e\mathrm{\Omega }}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi \nu _{ei}^{T}{}_{}{}^{5}}{6\mathrm{\Omega }^5}}\right)^{1/3},\chi _{}={\displaystyle \frac{5n_eT_e}{2m_e\mathrm{\Omega }}},`$ (37)
with exception of the coefficient $`\alpha _{}^0`$, which varies as $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{8/3}`$. Note, that this fractional dependence epperlein1  on the electron gyrofrequency follows directly from the integral definition of the oblique thermocurrent coefficient in Eq. (IV).

To simplify a comparison with results of classical transport theory braginskii ; epperlein1  we rewrite the expression for an electron heat flux (34) in terms of the electric current density instead of the effective electric field by using the following relation

$`𝐄^{}=\mathrm{\Omega }m_e/(e^2n_e)𝐣_{}+{\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}\mu _a𝐣_a{\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}\beta _a^{uT}i𝐤_a\delta T_e.`$ (38)
Similarly, one can represent $`𝐪`$ in the following form

$$𝐪=\underset{a}{}T_e\beta _a^{uT}𝐣_a\underset{a}{}\kappa _ai𝐤_a\delta T_e.$$
(39)
The above expressions are now indentical to Ohm’s (38) and Fourier’s (39) laws as derived in Ref. braginskii  (the Braginskii’s coefficient $`\alpha _a`$ is replaced here by $`\mu _a`$). Coefficients $`\mu _a`$, $`\kappa _a`$, and $`\beta _a^{uT}`$ in Eqs. (38) and (39) are defined as follows

$`\mu _{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma _{}^0}},\beta _{}^{uT}={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _{}^0}{\sigma _{}^0}},\kappa _{}=\chi _{}{\displaystyle \frac{T_e\alpha _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}}{\sigma _{}^0}},`$ (40)
$`\mu _{}={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{}^0}{\sigma _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}+\sigma _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}}},\mu _{}={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }m_e}{e^2n_e}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{}^0}{\sigma _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}+\sigma _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}}},`$
$`\beta _{}^{uT}={\displaystyle \frac{(\alpha _{}^0\sigma _{}^0+\alpha _{}^0\sigma _{}^0)}{\sigma _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}+\sigma _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}}},\kappa _{}=\chi _{}{\displaystyle \frac{T_e(\alpha _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}\sigma _{}^0+2\alpha _{}^0\alpha _{}^0\sigma _{}^0\alpha _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}\sigma _{}^0)}{\sigma _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}+\sigma _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}}},`$
$`\beta _{}^{uT}={\displaystyle \frac{(\alpha _{}^0\sigma _{}^0\alpha _{}^0\sigma _{}^0)}{\sigma _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}+\sigma _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}}},\kappa _{}=\chi _{}{\displaystyle \frac{T_e(\alpha _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}\sigma _{}^0+2\alpha _{}^0\alpha _{}^0\sigma _{}^0\alpha _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}\sigma _{}^0)}{\sigma _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}+\sigma _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}}}.`$
Transport coefficients given by (40) are the same as the results of Ref. epperlein1 , where a detailed comparison with the strongly collisional results of Braginskii braginskii  was made. Reference epperlein1  also gives the functional dependence of $`\beta _{}^{Tu}`$ and $`\mu _{}`$ on electron gyrofrequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

## V Nonlocal transport coefficients

In this section we will describe the dependence of the transport coefficients on the collisionality parameter, $`k\lambda _{ei}`$, for different values of the Hall parameter: $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T=0.1100`$. We start with the longitudinal transport coefficients. In the local transport theory the longitudinal coefficients do not depend on magnetic field. This is not true in general for nonlocal transport, except for the special case when the direction of the plasma inhomogeneity is along the direction of the magnetic field ($`kk_{}`$). In the general case ($`kk_{}`$) the dependence of transport coefficients, including longitudinal coefficients, on the magnetic field is defined by the symmetric part of the EDF which is a function of $`k_{}\rho `$.

In the case of weak plasma inhomogeneity along the magnetic field, $`k_{}k_{}`$, transport coefficients $`\sigma _{}`$ and $`\chi _{}`$ normalized to their classical strongly collisional values are shown in Figs. 1 and 2 as functions of the collisionality parameter $`k\lambda _{ei}`$. The nonlocality of transport coefficients is characterized by very different functional dependence on $`k\lambda _{ei}`$ depending on the magnitude of the Hall parameter, $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T`$. For small values of the Hall parameter, $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T<1`$, the transport coefficients steadily decrease with increasing $`k\lambda _{ei}`$. However, as shown in Figs. 1 and 2, they can exceed the standard classical values at $`k\lambda _{ei}1`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T>1`$. Note, that the regime of $`k\lambda _{ei}1`$ can still be within the validity condition of our theory, $`k_{}\lambda _{ei}<1`$, when the plasma gradients are almost transverse to the magnetic field, i.e. $`k_{}k_{}`$.

Transport in the case of a strong plasma inhomogeneity along magnetic field $`k_{}k_{}`$ is similar to the well known zero magnetic field case bychenkov , therefore the next example considered is for $`k_{}k_{}`$. Figures 3 and 4 show transport coefficients $`\sigma _{}`$ and $`\chi _{}`$ as functions of $`k\lambda _{ei}`$ for $`k_{}=k_{}`$. This corresponds to an angle of $`45^{}`$ between the magnetic field vector and the direction of a linear gradient. As it is shown in Figs. 3 and 4 electrical and temperature conductivities increase with magnetic field reaching maximum values at $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T0.3`$ (cf. curves 3 in both Figs. 3 and 4). Further increases in the parameter $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T`$ results in a small decrease in the coefficients $`\sigma _{}`$ and $`\chi _{}`$. At large values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T`$, they asymptotically approach curves 4 in Figs. 3 and 4. In general, the longitudinal transport coefficients display smaller effects of nonlocality for larger magnetic field values.

Unlike the longitudinal coefficients, the perpendicular and oblique transport coefficients demonstrate strong dependence on magnetic field. To illustrate this, coefficients $`\sigma _,`$ and $`\chi _,`$ are shown in Figs. 5 \- 8 as functions of collisionality parameter for different magnetic field values. In general, a strong magnetic field suppresses the effects of nonlocality. For instance, the transverse temperature conductivity, $`\chi _{}`$, is practically independent of the collisionality parameter over the entire range of variations, $`k\lambda _{ei}<1`$, at $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T=3`$ (curve 5 in Fig. 6). As in the longitudinal transport case, the coefficients $`\sigma _,`$ (Fig. 5) and $`\alpha _,^q`$ increase slightly with the collisionality parameter at $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T1`$. One can also see that nonlocal effects are stronger for oblique transport coefficients as compared to transversal coefficients (c.f. Fig. 5 and Fig. 7, and Fig. 6 and Fig. 8).

Figure 9 shows the ratio of the perpendicular to the longitudinal temperature conductivities as a function of Hall parameter. This ratio increases with the value of the nonlocality parameter, $`k\lambda _{ei}`$. Hence, in a plasma with steep gradients, the inhibition of electron fluxes due to a magnetic field is not as pronounced as in the strongly collisional case. This corresponds to an increase in the effective collision frequency (decrease of a mean free path) in the nonlocal limit bychenkov . The kinetic effect of reducing the electron mean free path due to transport nonlocality was included in recent 2D hydrodynamical simulations nicolai  by replacing parameter $`(\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T)^2`$ with $`d(\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T)^2`$ where $`d`$ is a constant that should be defined from the solution to the FP equation. However, our results demonstrate that the phenomenological constant $`d`$ should be more correctly replaced by a function of the gradient scale length, $`k\lambda _{ei}`$.

To complete our discussion of nonlocal, magnetic field dependent transport coefficients, note that the analysis of $`k\lambda _{ei}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T`$ dependencies can be performed for all other coefficients, $`\alpha ^c`$, $`\widehat{\sigma }`$, and $`\widehat{\alpha }`$. These are explicitly calculated in Appendix A. As in the nonlocal transport case without a magnetic field bychenkov , the coefficients $`\alpha ^c`$ in the present theory may change signs at some wave numbers. The tensor coefficients, $`\widehat{\alpha }`$ and $`\widehat{\alpha }`$, are negligible as $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T0`$, in agreement with the local transport theory braginskii . They are also very small for the case of a strong magnetic field $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T\mathrm{}`$. This is the reason why these coefficients contribute to the electron fluxes only at $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T1`$. Finally, all conclusions reached in the above discussion are valid only in the limit $`k_{}\lambda _{ei}<1`$ and $`k_{}<Max\{1/\rho ,1/\lambda _{ei}\}`$. These are the required conditions for our theory to be valid.

## VI Magnetohydrodynamic waves

The first two velocity moments of the Eq. (2) yield continuity and energy balance equations for the electrons

$`{\displaystyle \frac{n_e}{t}}+in_e𝐤𝐮{\displaystyle \frac{1}{e}}i𝐤𝐣=0,`$ (41)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{T_e}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3n_e}}i𝐤𝐪{\displaystyle \frac{2T_e}{3en_e}}i𝐤𝐣+{\displaystyle \frac{2T_e}{3}}i𝐤𝐮=0.`$
Equations (41) and the hydrodynamic equation of motion for ions,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{𝐮}{t}}={\displaystyle \frac{Ze}{m_i}}\stackrel{~}{𝐄}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n_im_i}}𝐑_{ie},`$ (42)
together with nonlocal transport relations (III) can be used in description of linear perturbations in a magnetized plasma. An ion-electron friction force, $`𝐑_{ie}`$, is defined by the anisotropic part of the EDF and can be expressed in terms of the electron current and the effective electric field,

$$𝐑_{ie}=m_e𝑑\mathrm{𝐯𝐯}\nu _{ei}f_e=en_e\stackrel{~}{𝐄}^{}\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_em_e}{e}𝐣_{},$$
(43)
and eventually in terms of the transport coefficients $`\alpha ^j`$ and $`\sigma `$. No other transport coefficients (c.f. Ref. bychenkov ) contribute to $`𝐑_{ie}`$ in the limit of $`k\lambda _{ei}<1`$.

By introducing perturbations of the form $`\mathrm{exp}(i\omega t)`$ into electron (41) and ion (42) fluid equations and by using Eq. (43) we obtain

$`e\omega \delta n_e+𝐤𝐣en_e𝐤𝐮=0`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3e}{2}}n_e\omega \delta T_ee𝐤𝐪+T_e𝐤𝐣eT_en_e𝐤𝐮=0`$ (44)
$`\omega 𝐮=𝐤c_s^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\delta n_e}{n_e}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta T_e}{T_e}}\right)i{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_i}{en_e}}𝐣_{},`$
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i=ZeB/m_ic`$ is the ion gyrofrequency. These equations together with the closure relations (III) and the standard wave equation,

$$𝐤^2𝐄(𝐄𝐤)𝐤4\pi i\omega /c^2𝐣=0,$$
(45)
allow a study of linear modes of the magnetized plasma in the low frequency limit, $`\omega kc,\omega _{pe}`$, where $`\omega _{pe}`$ is the electron plasma frequency.

The determinant of the system of equations (VI) and (45) gives a dispersion relation for quasistatic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves. It has been derived in the Appendix B in the following form

$`A(3\omega ^2\xi _A5c_s^2k_A^2)+B(3\omega ^25k^2c_s^2)+`$
$`C(\omega ^2kc_s^2)+D(\omega ^2\xi _Ac_s^2k_A^2)+E\mathrm{\Omega }_i\omega =0,`$ (46)
$`\xi _A={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{c^2k^2}}(\omega ^2k^2v_A^2),k_A^2={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{c^2}}(\omega ^2k_{}^2v_A^2),`$
Symbols used in Eq. (VI) are defined in Appendix B. In the strongly collisional limit, $`k\lambda _{ei}0`$, the dispersion equation (VI) has been studied in Ref. woods  in the isothermal approximation. In this approximation, long wave contributions given by coefficients $`A`$ and $`B`$ are neglected because they account for the adiabatic plasma response. Without a magnetic field, Eq. (VI) corresponds to the ion acoustic dispersion relation (33) of Ref. myatt .

Three MHD modes are defined by different branches of the solution to Eq. (VI) for the real part of $`\omega `$. They are shown in Figs. 10a and 11a and correspond to the well known low frequency waves. The highest frequency branch (curves 1 in Figs. 10a and 11a) represents the fast MHD wave, $`\omega =\omega _+`$ where $`\omega _\pm ^2=(k^2(v_A^2+c_s^2)\pm \sqrt{k^4(v_A^2+c_s^2)^24k^2k_{}^2v_A^2c_s^2})/2`$. The second branch (curve 2) includes, from small to large values of $`k\lambda _{ei}`$: the Alfven wave ($`\omega =k_{}v_A\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$), first ion cyclotron wave ($`\omega =\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$) and ion acoustic wave ($`\omega =kc_s`$), respectively. Finally, the lowest frequency branch (curve 3) describes the slow MHD wave, $`\omega =\omega _{}\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$ at small $`k\lambda _{ei}`$ and a second ion cyclotron wave ($`\omega =\mathrm{\Omega }_ik_{}/k`$) for large $`k\lambda _{ei}`$.

Depending on plasma conditions, nonlocal effects may change the damping of MHD modes. This is shown in Figs. 10b and 11b for a propagation angle of 80 with respect to the direction of a magnetic field. The almost transverse direction of the vector $`𝐤`$ allows examination of the high $`k\lambda _{ei}`$ values in Figs. 10 and 11 within the applicability limits of our theory, $`k_{}\lambda _{ei}1`$. Two parameters, $`p=(\omega _{pe}v_{Te}/\nu _{ei}^Tc)^2`$ and $`h^2=(\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T)^2`$, define different regimes of MHD wave damping. The $`p/h^2`$ is a well-known $`\beta `$-parameter, $`\beta =c_s^2/v_A^2`$. Figure 10 corresponds to a high-$`\beta `$ (high pressure) plasma and Fig. 11 describes a low-$`\beta `$ (low pressure) case. Note, that we do not discuss effects of ion viscosity. This can be included independently by using the standard approach of Ref. woods .

In a high-$`\beta `$ plasma all modes except the fast MHD wave experience the usual collisional damping. The damping of the fast MHD wave in this case is unchanged up to the wavenumber $`k0.3/\lambda _{ei}`$ and is enhanced at higher wavenumbers (Fig. 10b). It can reach values up to an order of magnitude higher than the damping rates given by the usual collisional approach woods  close to the short wave length applicability limit of our model. In a low-$`\beta `$ plasma, the slow MHD wave and the ion-acoustic wave can experience enhanced damping due to nonlocal effects (Fig. 11b) while the fast MHD mode has the usual damping. The enhanced damping of the slow MHD wave appears at $`k>0.1/\lambda _{ei}`$ and remains up to $`k3/\lambda _{ei}`$ until the slow MHD wave becomes a second ion cyclotron wave. At the same wavenumber, $`k3/\lambda _{ei}`$, the ion-acoustic wave appears (the curve 2 in Fig. 11). The damping of ion-acoustic wave can be much higher than the standard collisional damping. This agrees with the result of Ref. bychenkov0  because of the negligible role that is played by the magnetic field in this case.

## VII Relaxation of hot spot temperature in a magnetic field.

Current laser plasma interaction experiments involve random phase plate laser beams which control the intensity distribution in the focal plane. This makes a hot spot geometry for the temperature inhomogeneity a basic element of transport theory in such plasmas. Typically the characteristic scales of the temperature gradient are in the regime of nonlocal transport. A self-generated magnetic field has also been well documented in such plasmas. Its existence motivates the discussion below, where we apply our transport theory to a single hot spot transport problem with magnetic field effects included.

We consider the relaxation of a single hot spot in a plasma with a given magnetic field. The geometry of our model involves an initial temperature perturbation with cylindrical symmetry which evolves due to thermal transport. The magnetic field is assumed orthogonal to the radial temperature gradient, i.e. it can have only $`B_z`$ or $`B_\phi `$ components. We will examine conditions in laser produced plasmas where magnetic field effects influance transport in the nonlocal regime. The solution of the initial value problem follows Ref. senecha , where the relaxation of a hot spot was studied in an unmagnetized plasma. A temperature perturbation in a cylindrical hot spot is assumed to have a Gaussian profile

$$\delta T_0(r)=\delta T_0\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{r^2}{R^2}\right)$$
(47)
at time, $`t=0`$. We also assume that the plasma flow has a negligible effect on the temperature relaxation, $`𝐮=0`$.

Our model includes the energy balance equation (41) for electrons

$$\frac{\delta T_e}{t}=i\frac{2}{3n_e}𝐤_{}𝐪_{},$$
(48)
where the heat flux across magnetic field, $`𝐪_{}`$, (III) has the following form $`𝐤_{}𝐪_{}=i𝐤_{}^2\kappa _{}\delta T_e`$. The value $`\kappa _{}=\chi _{}T_e(\alpha _{}^j)^2/\sigma _{}`$ is the transverse nonlocal heat conductivity.

The solution to the equation (48) is given by Eq. (5) in Ref. senecha . The radial temperature and electron heat flux profiles are presented in Fig. 12 for the magnetic field corresponding to Hall parameter $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T=0.3`$. The result of the classical transport approach epperlein  (dashed line) overestimates the electron heat flux (Fig. 12b). Because of this reason, the hot spot temperature obtained from local theory epperlein  decreases faster (Fig. 12a) than predictions from Eq. (48). As discussed in the previous section, a combination of the magnetic field and nonlocal effects leads to a slightly larger heat flux and smaller temperature as compared to the nonlocal and unmagnetized case. This is illustrated by dotted (present theory) and continuous lines (nonlocal and unmagnetized theory from Ref. senecha ) in Fig. 12.

As expected, effects of nonlocal thermal transport become negligible with increasing values of the magnetic field. This is illustrated by Fig. 13, where the relaxation time (the time necessary for the temperature in the center of the hot spot to drop to half of its initial value) is shown as a function of the hot spot size, $`R/\lambda _{ei}`$ for different magnetic fields. For $`R/\lambda _{ei}3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T=1`$ the effect of nonlocality almost vanishes. For small Hall parameters, $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T0.1`$, the influence of a magnetic field on the temperature relaxation can be ignored. For the intermediate magnetic field strength $`0.1<\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T<1`$ both magnetic field and nonlocal effects are important and their interplay defines the relaxation of the hot spot temperature.

## VIII Conclusions

We have applied a systematic closure procedure bychenkov  to a magnetized plasma in the regime of moderate collisionality where $`k_{}\lambda _{ei}<1`$ and $`k_{}<Max\{1/\rho ,1/\lambda _{ei}\}`$. We have derived nonlocal hydrodynamic equations which are valid for small perturbations about an equilibrium homogeneous state and for a plasma with high ionic charge. Our transport theory is fully equivalent to the linearized electron kinetic equation but possesses advantages of the reduced model which describes plasma in terms of just few moments of the distribution function. The closure procedure provides nonlocal relations between electron fluxes and gradients in the plasma density and electron temperature, and an electrostatic field. These tensor transport relations account for all orientations of the magnetic field and the plasma gradients: longitudinal, oblique, and transverse.

Competition between nonlocal and magnetic field effects is poorly understood and our theory provides a rigorous means of examining the relative importance of both factors. We have found that large magnetic fields contribute to the enhancement of electron conductivity in the weakly collisional regime. This increase can offset inhibition due to nonlocal effects. This is an important effect that is necessary to explain transport phenomena in laser produced plasmas nicolai . The practical importance of our theory lies in providing benchmark results for comparisons with the phenomenological models such as Ref. nicolai  or future kinetic simulations (cf. Refs. brunner ; brunner1 ).

We have described the application of nonlocal hydrodynamics to the MHD wave dispersion and damping calculations and to hot spot temperature relaxation. There are important enhancements to collisional damping of MHD modes in the nonlocal transport regime. The presence of a strong magnetic field is the main source of thermal transport inhibition in the relaxation of a hot spot. For the intermediate values, $`0.1<\mathrm{\Omega }/\nu _{ei}^T<1`$, the hot spot displays the simultaneous effects of electron gyro motion and nonlocal transport.

Our results provide a next step in the ongoing efforts to develop a plasma hydrodynamics model which is valid for the wide range of plasma conditions and includes nonlinear response to large amplitude perturbations. The application of linear theory to experimental data, such as montgomery ; nicolai ; ditmire ; glenzer1 , and comparison with kinetic simulations and its generalization to include local dependence on plasma parameters, as in Ref. batishchev , could lead to a nonlocal nonlinear transport theory in magnetized plasmas. Linear nonlocal hydrodynamics models provide a description of the plasma thermal response to electromagnetic radiation in stimulated Brillouin scattering, filamentation and in the filament resonant instability sbs-fil ; sf ; inst . Current results will allow generalization of these processes to the case of magnetized plasmas.

###### Acknowledgements.

A. V. B. and W. R. acknowledge generous support from the Alberta Ingenuity Fund. This work was partly supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant N 03-02-16428).

## Appendix A Nonlocal transport coefficients

The components of the electrical conductivity tensor, $`\widehat{𝝈}`$, and thermocurrent tensor, $`\widehat{𝜶}^𝒋`$ are presented in the following form:

$`\sigma _{11}=\sigma _{}^0\sigma _{}+\sigma _{}^{E_1}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}},\sigma _{12}=\sigma _{}^0\sigma _{}\sigma _{}^{E_2}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}},`$
$`\sigma _{21}=\sigma _{}^0\sigma _{}+\sigma _{}^{E_1}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}},\sigma _{22}=\sigma _{}^0\sigma _{}+\sigma _{}^{E_2}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}},`$
$`\alpha _{11}=\alpha _{}^0\alpha _{}^q+\alpha _{}^{E_1}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}},\alpha _{12}=\alpha _{}^0\alpha _{}^q\alpha _{}^{E_2}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}},`$ (49)
$`\alpha _{21}=\alpha _{}^0\alpha _{}^q+\alpha _{}^{E_1}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}},\alpha _{22}=\alpha _{}^0\alpha _{}^q+\alpha _{}^{E_2}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}},`$
$`\alpha _{31}=\alpha _{}^0\alpha _{}^q\alpha _{}^{E_1}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}},\alpha _{32}=\alpha _{}^{E_2}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}.`$
The coefficients $`\sigma _a^0`$ and $`\alpha _a^0`$ are given by the transport theory for strong collisions (32) and the introduced new transport coefficients, such as

$`\sigma _a={\displaystyle \frac{e^2n_e}{T_ek^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{D_{aT}^{NT}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}},\sigma _a^{E_1}={\displaystyle \frac{e^2n_e}{T_ek^2}}\left[J_a^{E_1}{\displaystyle \frac{D_{NT}^{E_1T}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}J_a^N{\displaystyle \frac{D_{TN}^{E_1N}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}J_a^T\right],`$
$`\alpha _a^j={\displaystyle \frac{en_e}{T_ek^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{D_{aT}^{NT}D_{aN}^{TN}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}},\sigma _a^{E_2}={\displaystyle \frac{e^2n_e}{T_ek^2}}\left[J_a^{E_2}{\displaystyle \frac{D_{NT}^{E_2T}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}J_a^N{\displaystyle \frac{D_{TN}^{E_2N}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}J_a^T\right]`$ (50)
$`\alpha _a^q={\displaystyle \frac{en_e}{T_ek^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{D_{q_aT}^{NT}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}},\alpha _a^{E_1}={\displaystyle \frac{en_e}{T_ek^2}}\left[J_{q_a}^{E_1}{\displaystyle \frac{D_{NT}^{E_1T}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}J_{q_a}^N{\displaystyle \frac{D_{TN}^{E_1N}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}J_{q_a}^T\right],`$
$`\chi _a={\displaystyle \frac{n_e}{k^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{D_{q_aT}^{NT}D_{q_aN}^{TN}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}},\alpha _a^{E_2}={\displaystyle \frac{en_e}{T_ek^2}}\left[J_{q_a}^{E_2}{\displaystyle \frac{D_{NT}^{E_2T}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}J_{q_a}^N{\displaystyle \frac{D_{TN}^{E_2N}}{D_{NT}^{NT}}}J_{q_a}^T\right],`$
Expressions in (50) can be calculated in terms of moments of the basic distribution functions satisfying Eq. (8).

## Appendix B Dispersion relation

This appendix presents the result of calculation of the dispersion relation for MHD waves. We write the nonlocal hydrodynamic equations (VI) and the wave equation (45) in the matrix form. The vanishing of the following determinant leads to the dispersion relation.

$`\left|\begin{array}{ccccccc}k^2\sigma & k_{}\sigma _{}& k_{}\sigma _{}& ik^2\alpha ^j& 0& 0& 0\\ k_{}\sigma _{}& \sigma _{}+{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\sigma _{11}& \sigma _{}\sigma _{12}& ik_{}^2\alpha _{}^j& 1& 0& 0\\ k_{}^2\sigma _{}& \sigma _{}+{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\sigma _{21}& \sigma _{}+\sigma _{22}& ik_{}^2\alpha _{}^j& 0& 1& 0\\ k^2\alpha T_e& k_{}\alpha _{}^jT_e& k_{}\alpha _{}^jT_e& ik^2\chi +{\displaystyle \frac{5n_e\omega }{2}}& 0& 0& \omega n_eT_e\\ 0& \omega k_{}^2c^2/4\pi & 0& 0& i(\omega ^2k_{}^2v_A^2)& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& {\displaystyle \frac{k^2c^2\omega ^2}{4\pi }}& 0& 0& i(\omega ^2k^2v_A^2)& k_{}\mathrm{\Omega }_i{\displaystyle \frac{k^2c^2T_e}{4\pi e}}\\ 0& 0& 0& \omega ^2/T_e& 0& ik_{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_i}{en_e}}& k^2c_s^2\omega ^2\end{array}\right|`$ (58)
where $`\{\sigma ,\alpha ,\chi \}=k^2\{k_{}^2\sigma _{}+k_{}^2\sigma _{},k_{}^2\alpha _{}+k_{}^2\alpha _{},k_{}^2\chi _{}+k_{}^2\chi _{}\}`$, $`c_s=\sqrt{ZT_e/m_i}`$ is the ion-acoustic velocity, and $`v_A=B/\sqrt{4\pi m_in_i}`$ is the Alfven velocity.

This dispersion relation could be rewritten in the form (VI) where the parameters $`A`$, $`B`$, $`C`$, $`D`$, and $`E`$, which are the functions of the nonlocal transport coefficients arise naturally. They are

$`A`$ $`=`$ $`n_e(k_A^2\omega \sigma _3+i\omega ^2k^2\sigma _{})/2,`$
$`B`$ $`=`$ $`n_e\omega ^2(k^2\omega \sigma ik_A^2\sigma _{})/2,`$
$`C`$ $`=`$ $`k_A^2k^2(\chi \sigma _{}T_e\alpha _{})+i\omega ^2k^4(\chi \sigma T_e\alpha ^2),`$
$`D`$ $`=`$ $`\omega k^4(\chi \sigma _+T_e\alpha _+)ik_A^2k^2(\chi \sigma _3T_e\alpha _4),`$
$`E`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{T_e}{e}}k_{}^2\omega (k^2(\sigma \alpha _{}\alpha \sigma _{})+ik_A^2\omega \alpha _3),`$
where we introduced the following combinations of the transport coefficients:

$`\sigma _{}`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma _{}\sigma _{}+\sigma \sigma _{11},\sigma _+=\sigma (\sigma _{}+\sigma _{22})+{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\sigma _{}^2,`$
$`\alpha _{}`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\alpha _{}^2\sigma _{}+{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\alpha _{}^2\sigma _{}+\alpha ^2\sigma _{11}),`$
$`\alpha _+`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha ^2(\sigma _{}+\sigma _{22})+{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}(2\alpha _{}\alpha _{}\sigma _{}\alpha _{}^2\sigma ),`$
$`\alpha _3`$ $`=`$ $`(2\sigma _{}(\sigma _{}\alpha _{}\sigma _{}\alpha _{})+2\sigma _{11}(\sigma _{}\alpha \sigma \alpha _{})+(\sigma _{12}+{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\sigma _{21})(\sigma _{}\alpha _{}\sigma _{}\alpha _{})),`$
$`\alpha _4`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\alpha _{}(als+\sigma _{})+(\sigma _{}+\sigma _{22})\alpha _{}+(\alpha ^2\sigma _{12}\sigma _{21}+{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\alpha _{}^2\sigma _{}^2+\alpha \alpha _{}\sigma _{}(\sigma _{12}+{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\sigma _{21})),`$
$`\sigma _3`$ $`=`$ $`(\sigma _{}(\sigma _{}^2+\sigma _{}^2)+\sigma (\sigma _{11}(\sigma _{}+\sigma _{22})+\sigma _{12}\sigma _{21})+\sigma _{}\sigma _{11}(\sigma _{12}+{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\sigma _{21}))+`$
$`\sigma _{22}\sigma _{}\sigma _{}+{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{k^2}}\sigma _{11}\sigma _{}^2.`$
The derived dispersion relation (VI) describes small amplitude MHD modes in the $`k_{}\lambda _{ei}<1`$–range of the wave numbers. This encompasses the range of wave numbers from the adiabatic perturbations for small $`k`$ to the isothermal perturbations for shorter wavelength.

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