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Electron mirror instability: particle-in-cell simulations

Part of: Focus on Space Plasmas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2018

Petr Hellinger Open the ORCID record for Petr Hellinger [Opens in a new window]  and
Štěpán Štverák
Petr Hellinger*
Affiliation:
Astronomical Institute, CAS, Bocni II/1401, CZ-14000 Prague, Czech Republic Institute of Atmospheric Physics, CAS, Bocni II/1401, CZ-14000 Prague, Czech Republic
Štěpán Štverák
Affiliation:
Astronomical Institute, CAS, Bocni II/1401, CZ-14000 Prague, Czech Republic Institute of Atmospheric Physics, CAS, Bocni II/1401, CZ-14000 Prague, Czech Republic
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

Properties of the electron mirror instability and its competition with the usually dominant whistler (electron cyclotron) instability driven by the electron perpendicular temperature anisotropy are investigated at the linear level using a Vlasov linear solver and at the nonlinear level using a two-dimensional full particle code. The simulation results show that the linearly subdominant electron mirror instability may compete at the nonlinear level with the whistler instability and may even eventually become the dominant mode that generates robust non-propagating sub-ion-scale coherent structures in the form of magnetic peaks.

Keywords

astrophysical plasmasplasma instabilitiesplasma nonlinear phenomena
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 84 , Issue 4 , August 2018 , 905840402
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018 

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