English

Photon frequency diffusion process

Statistical Mechanics 2022-08-18 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract

We introduce a stochastic multi-photon dynamics on reciprocal space. Assuming isotropy, we derive the diffusion limit for a tagged photon to be a nonlinear Markov process on frequency. The nonlinearity stems from the stimulated emission. In the case of Compton scattering with thermal electrons, the limiting process describes the dynamical fluctuations around the Kompaneets equation. More generally, we construct a photon frequency diffusion process which enables to include nonequilibrium effects. Modifications of the Planck Law may thus be explored, where we focus on the low-frequency regime.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2202.08660,
  title  = {Photon frequency diffusion process},
  author = {Guilherme Eduardo Freire Oliveira and Christian Maes and Kasper Meerts},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.08660},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

30 pages, 8 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-24T09:42:42.321Z