Generic global solutions of the relativistic Vlasov-Maxwell system of plasma physics (Q756024)

The time evolution of a collisionless plasma consisting of various species of particles which interact by selfconsistent, electromagnetic forces is described by the relativistic Vlasov-Maxwell system. The author investigates the behaviour of classical solutions to the corresponding initial value problem under small perturbations of the initial data. First it is shown that the solutions depend continuously on the initial data with respect to various norms. The main result is on global solutions. A global solution whose electromagnetic field decays in a certain way for large times is shown to remain global under small perturbations of the initial data and to retain the decay behaviour of the field. Therefore, such global solutions are generic. This global perturbation result implies the existence of global classical solutions for small and for nearly neutral data - results which were known from the earlier work by \textit{R. Glassey} and \textit{J. Schaeffer} [Commun. Math. Phys. 119, No.3, 353-384 (1988; Zbl 0673.35070)] and \textit{R. Glassey} and \textit{W. Strauss} [ibid. 113, 191-208 (1987; Zbl 0646.35072)] and a new global existence result for nearly spherically symmetric initial data.