A collisionless plasma is modeled by the Vlasov-Maxwell system. In the presence of very large velocities, relativistic corrections are meaningful. When magnetic effects are ignored this formally becomes the relativistic Vlasov-Poisson equation. The initial value for the phase space density f₀(x,v) is assumed to be sufficiently smooth, nonnegative and cylindrically symmetric. If the (two-dimensional) angular momentum is bounded away from zero on the support of f₀(x,v), it is shown that a smooth solution to the Cauchy problem exists for all times.

This is joint work with Jack Schaeffer of Carnegie Mellon University.

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