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Low-frequency instabilities of a warm plasma in a magnetic field: Part 1. Instabilities driven by field-aligned currents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2009

Dean F. Smith  and
Joseph V. Hollweg
Dean F. Smith
Affiliation:
High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research,*Boulder, Colorado 80303, and Max Planck Institut für Physik und Astrophysik, Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, 8046 Garching, Federal Republic of Germany
Joseph V. Hollweg
Affiliation:
High Altitude Observatory, National Centre for Atmospheric Research,*Boulder, Colorado 80303, and Max Planck Institut für Aeronomie, 3411 Katlenburg-Lindau, Federal Republic of Germany
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Abstract

The marginal stability of a plasma carrying current along the static magnetic field with isotropic Maxwellian ions and isotropic Maxwellian electrons drifting relative to the ions is investigated. The complete electromagnetic dispersion relation is studied using numerical techniques; the electron sums are restricted to three terms which limits the analysis to frequencies much less than the electron gyro-frequency, but includes frequencies somewhat above the ion gyro-frequency. A ‘kink-like’ instability and an instability of the Alfvén mode are found to have the lowest threshold drift velocities in most cases. In fact the threshold drift for the kink-like instability can be significantly less than the ion thermal speed. Electrostatic and electromagnetic ion-cyclotron instabilities are also found as well as the electro-static ion-acoustic instability. No instability of the fast magnetosonic mode was found. The stability analysis provides only threshold drift velocities and gives no information about growth rates.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , February 1977 , pp. 105 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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