No Arabic abstract
In plasmas where the thermal energy density exceeds the magnetic energy density ($beta_parallel > 1$), the aperiodic ordinary mode (O-mode) instability is driven by an excess of parallel temperature $A = T_perp /T_parallel < 1$ (where $parallel$ and $perp$ denote directions relative to the uniform magnetic field). When stimulated by parallel plasma streams the instability conditions extend to low beta states, i.e., $beta_parallel <1$, and recent studies have proven the existence of a new regime, where the anisotropy threshold decreases steeply with lowering $beta_parallel to 0$ if the streaming velocity is sufficiently high. However, the occurrence of this instability is questionable especially in the low-beta plasmas, where the electrostatic two-stream instabilities are expected to develop much faster in the process of relaxation of the counterstreams. It is therefore proposed here to identify the instability conditions for the O-mode below those required for the onset of the electrostatic instability. An hierarchy of these two instabilities is established for both the low $beta_parallel <1$ and large $beta_parallel > 1$ plasmas. The conditions where the O-mode instability can operate efficiently are markedly constrained by the electrostatic instabilities especially in the low-beta plasmas.
The tearing mode instability is one important mechanism that may explain the triggering of fast magnetic reconnection in astrophysical plasmas such as the solar corona and the Earths magnetosphere. In this paper, the linear stability analysis of the tearing mode is carried out for a current sheet in the presence of a guide field, including the Hall effect. We show that the presence of a strong guide field does not modify the most unstable mode in the two-dimensional wave vector space orthogonal to the current gradient direction, which remains the fastest growing parallel mode. With the Hall effect, the inclusion of a guide field turns the non-dispersive propagation along the guide field direction to a dispersive one. The oblique modes have a wave-like structure along the normal direction of the current sheet and a strong guide field suppresses this structure while making the eigen-functions asymmetric.
Filamentation due to the growth of a Weibel-type instability was observed in the interaction of a pair of counter-streaming, ablatively-driven plasma flows, in a supersonic, collisionless regime relevant to astrophysical collisionless shocks. The flows were created by irradiating a pair of opposing plastic (CH) foils with 1.8 kJ, 2-ns laser pulses on the OMEGA EP laser system. Ultrafast laser-driven proton radiography was used to image the Weibel-generated electromagnetic fields. The experimental observations are in good agreement with the analytical theory of the Weibel instability and with particle-in-cell simulations.
In continuation of previous work, numerical results are presented, concerning relativistically counter-streaming plasmas. Here, the relativistic mixed mode instability evolves through, and beyond, the linear saturation -- well into the nonlinear regime. Besides confirming earlier findings, that wave power initially peaks on the mixed mode branch, it is observed that, during late time evolution wave power is transferred to other wave numbers. It is argued that the isotropization of power in wavenumber space may be a consequence of weak turbulence. Further, some modifications to the ideal weak turbulence limit is observed. Development of almost isotropic predominantly electrostatic -- partially electromagnetic -- turbulent spectra holds relevance when considering the spectral emission signatures of the plasma, namely bremsstrahlung, respectively magneto-bremsstrahlung (synchrotron radiation and jitter radiation) from relativistic shocks in astrophysical jets and shocks from gamma-ray bursts and active galactic nuclei.
Damping of the previously discovered resonant drag instability (RDI) of dust streaming in protoplanetary disc is studied using the local approach to dynamics of gas-dust perturbations in the limit of the small dust fraction. Turbulence in a disc is represented by the effective viscosity and diffusivity in equations of motion for gas and dust, respectively. In the standard case of the Schmidt number (ratio of the effective viscosity to diffusivity) Sc = 1, the reduced description of RDI in terms of the inertial wave (IW) and the streaming dust wave (SDW) falling in resonance with each other reveals that damping solution differs from the inviscid solution simply by adding the characteristic damping frequency to its growth rate. RDI is fully suppressed at the threshold viscosity, which is estimated analytically, first, for radial drift, next, for vertical settling of dust, and at last, in the case of settling combined with radial drift of the dust. In the last case, RDI survives up to the highest threshold viscosity, with a greater excess for smaller solids. Once Sc eq 1, a new instability specific for dissipative perturbations on the dust settling background emerges. This instability of the quasi-resonant nature is referred to as settling viscous instability (SVI). The mode akin to SDW (IW) becomes growing in a region of long waves provided that Sc > 1 (Sc < 1). SVI leads to an additional increase of the threshold viscosity.
A non-resonant streaming instability driven by cosmic-ray currents, also called Bells instability, is proposed as a candidate for providing the required magnetic turbulence of efficient diffusive shock accelerations. To demonstrate the saturation level and mechanism of the non-resonant streaming instability in a laboratory environment, we attempt to develop an experiment at the Photo Injector Test Facility at DESY, Zeuthen site (PITZ). As an electron beam is used to replace the proton beam to carry the cosmic-ray current in our experiment, the polarization of the non-resonant streaming instability will be modified from the left-handed (LH) mode to the right-handed (RH) mode. The theoretical instability analysis shows that the growth rate of this RH non-resonant mode may be smaller than it of the LH resonant mode. However the LH resonant mode can be ignored in our experiment while the expected wavelength is longer than the used plasma cell. The results of PIC simulations will also support this contention and the occurrence of non-resonant streaming instability in our experiment.