Excitation and Decay of Electron Acoustic Waves

Journal Article · Wed Oct 18 04:00:00 EDT 2006 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2387901· OSTI ID:20891701

Valentini, Francesco ^[1]; O'Neil, Thomas M; Dubin, Daniel H. E. ^[2]

---

1. Dipt. di Fisica, Univ. della Calabria, 87036 Rende (Italy)
2. Department of Physics, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093 (United States)

A particle in cell (PIC) simulation is used to investigate the excitation of electron acoustic waves (EAWs) by a driver electric eld and the stability of the EAWs against decay. An EAW is a nonlinear wave with a carefully tailored trapped particle population, and the excitation process must create the trapped particle population. For a nearly collisionless plasma, successful excitation occurs when a relatively low amplitude driver that is spatially and temporally resonant with the EAW is applied for a suf ciently long time (many trapping periods). The excited EAW rings at nearly constant amplitude long after the driver is turned off, provided the EAW has the largest wavelength that ts in the simulation domain. Otherwise, the excited EAW decays to a longer wavelength EAW. In phase space, this decay to longer wavelength appears as a tendency of the vortex-like trapped particle populations to merge.

• OSTI ID: 20891701
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 862; ISSN 0094-243X; ISSN APCPCS
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
AMPLITUDES
COLLISIONLESS PLASMA
ELECTRON PLASMA WAVES
EXCITATION
PLASMA SIMULATION
TRAPPING
WAVELENGTHS