Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T00:19:27.586Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Kinetic theory of the diochotron instability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2009

A. Nocentini
Affiliation:
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, University of California, Livermore, California
H. L. Berk
Affiliation:
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, University of California, Livermore, California
R. N. Sudan
Affiliation:
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, University of California, Livermore, California

Abstract

The diochotron instability of a thin, tenuous, cylindrical layer of charged particles, whose gyro-radius is of the order of the mean radius of the cylindrical layer, is investigated using the Vlasov equation. Two distribution functions are considered which give practically the same density in the physical space, but are quite different in the velocity space: in the first the velocity spread is practically zero; in the second the particles oscillate around the mean radius of the cylindrical layer. It is shown that the first distribution exhibits the usual diochotron instability, while the second one does not. It is also shown that, however small the velocity spread, the thickness of the cylindrical layer cannot go to zero. Its minimum value is roughly determined by equating the plasma frequency to the cyclotron frequency.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Brillouin, L. 1945 Phys. Rev. 67, 260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buneman, O. 1957 J. Electronics & Control 3, 507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buneman, O., Levy, R. H. & Linson, L. M. 1966 J. Appl. Phys. 37, 3203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burt, P. & Harris, E. G. 1961 Phys. Fluids 4, 1412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enoch, J. 1966 Phys. Fluids 9, 299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, T. K. 1965 Oak Ridge National Laboratory Semiannual Progress Report, no. 3908, p. 16.Google Scholar
Landau, R. W. & Neil, V. K. 1966 Phys. Fluids 9, 2413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, R. H. 1965 Phys. Fluids 8, 1288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neil, V. K. & Heckrotte, W. 1965 J. Appl. Phys. 36, 2761.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sudan, R. N. 1965 Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 10, 214.Google Scholar
Yarkovoi, O. I. 1963 Sov. Phys. Tech. Phys. 7, 951.Google Scholar