Quasilinear saturation of the aperiodic ordinary mode streaming instability

Journal Article · Tue Sep 15 04:00:00 EDT 2015 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4929852· OSTI ID:22490148

Schlickeiser, R. ^[1]; Yoon, P. H. ^[2]; Lazar, M. ^[1]; Poedts, S. ^[3]; Seough, J. ^[4]

---

1. Institut für Theoretische Physik, Lehrstuhl IV: Weltraum-und Astrophysik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, D-44780 Bochum (Germany)
2. Institute for Physical Science & Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 (United States)
3. Centre for Mathematical Plasma Astrophysics, Celestijnenlaan 200B, 3001 Leuven (Belgium)
4. Faculty of Human Development, University of Toyama, 3190, Gofuku, Toyama City, Toyama 930-8555 (Japan)

In collisionless plasmas, only kinetic instabilities and fluctuations are effective in reducing the free energy and scatter plasma particles, preventing an increase of their anisotropy. Solar energetic outflows into the interplanetary plasma give rise to important thermal anisotropies and counterstreaming motions of plasma shells, and the resulting instabilities are expected to regulate the expansion of the solar wind. The present paper combines quasilinear theory and kinetic particle-in-cell simulations in order to study the weakly nonlinear saturation of the ordinary mode in hot counter-streaming plasmas with a temperature anisotropy as a follow-up of the paper by Seough et al. [Phys. Plasmas 22, 082122 (2015)]. This instability provides a plausible mechanism for the origin of dominating, two-dimensional spectrum of transverse magnetic fluctuations observed in the solar wind. Stimulated by the differential motion of electron counterstreams the O mode instability may convert their free large-scale energy by nonlinear collisionless dissipation on plasma particles.

• OSTI ID: 22490148
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 22; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ANISOTROPY
COLLISIONLESS PLASMA
ELECTRONS
FLUCTUATIONS
FREE ENERGY
INSTABILITY
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PLASMA SIMULATION
QUASILINEAR PROBLEMS
SOLAR WIND
SPECTRA
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS