ABSTRACT
A new class of self-consistent planar current sheets and cylindrical current filaments with a functional freedom for the resultant spatial profiles is found analytically for collisionless plasma. Invariants of particle motion are employed to obtain exact stationary solutions of Vlasov-Maxwell equations for arbitrary energy distribution of particles. This method automatically takes into account complicated particle motion in a self-consistent magnetic field, can be equally well applied to relativistic and nonrelativistic plasma, and yields a much wider class of solutions as compared to models of the Harris-Bennett type and their known generalizations. We discuss typical analytical solutions and general properties of magnetostatic neutral structures: spatial scales, magnitudes of current and magnetic field, degree of anisotropy of particle distributions, and possible equipartition of magnetic and particle energies.
