Marginal instability threshold condition of the aperiodic ordinary mode in equal-mass plasmas
- Institut für Theoretische Physik, Lehrstuhl IV: Weltraum- and Astrophysik, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum (Germany)
- Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 (United States)
The purely growing ordinary (O) mode instability for counter-streaming bi-Maxwellian plasma particle distribution functions has recently received renewed attention due to its importance for the solar wind plasma. Here, the analytical marginal instability condition is derived for magnetized plasmas consisting of equal-mass charged particles, distributed in counter-streams with equal temperatures. The equal-mass composition assumption enormously facilitates the theoretical analysis due to the equality of the values of the electron and positron (positive and negative ion) plasma and gyrofrequencies. The existence of a new instability domain of the O-mode at small plasma beta values is confirmed, when the parallel counter-stream free energy exceeds the perpendicular bi-Maxwellian free energy.
- OSTI ID:
- 22299738
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 21, Issue 10; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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