English

Creation of Magnetic Fields by Electrostatic and Thermal Fluctuations

Plasma Physics 2011-02-18 v1

Abstract

It is pointed out that the unmagnetized inhomogeneous plasmas can support a low frequency electromagnetic ion wave as a normal mode like Alfven wave of magnetized plasmas. But this is a coupled mode produced by the mixing of longitudinal and transverse components of perturbed electric field due to density inhomogeneity. The ion acoustic wave does not remain electrostatic in non-uniform plasmas. On the other hand, a low frequency electrostatic wave can also exist in the pure electron plasmas. But the magnetic field fluctuations in both electron as well as in electron-ion plasmas are coupled with the electrostatic perturbations in unmagnetized case. The main instability condition for these low frequency electrostatic and electromagnetic modes is the same 2/3κn<κT{2/3}\kappa_n < \kappa_T (where κn\kappa_n and κT\kappa_T are inverse of the scale lengths of density and electron temperature, respectively).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1102.3497,
  title  = {Creation of Magnetic Fields by Electrostatic and Thermal Fluctuations},
  author = {Hamid Saleem},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1102.3497},
  year   = {2011}
}