Related papers: Observation of an ultracold plasma instability
Electrostatic oscillations in cold electron-positron plasmas can be coupled to a propagating electromagnetic mode if the background magnetic field is inhomogeneous. Previous work considered this coupling in the quasi-linear regime,…
A hypothesis on the physical mechanism generating the heartbeat instability in complex (dusty) plasmas is presented. It is suggested that the instability occurs due to the periodically repeated critical transformation on the boundary…
In the absence of efficient collisions, deviations from thermal equilibrium of plasma particle distributions are controlled by the self-generated instabilities. The whistler instability is a notorious example, usually responsible for the…
In collision-poor plasmas from space, e.g., the solar wind and planetary magnetospheres, the kinetic anisotropy of the plasma particles is expected to be regulated by the kinetic instabilities. Driven by an excess of ion (proton)…
Runaway electrons with strongly anisotropic distributions present in post-disruption tokamak plasmas can destabilize the extraordinary electron (EXEL) wave. The present work investigates the dynamics of the quasi-linear evolution of the…
Microscopic instability and macroscopic flow pattern resulting from colliding plasmas are studied analytically in support of laboratory experiments. The plasma flows are assumed to stream radially from two separate centers. In a…
We develop a theory of buoyancy instabilities of the electron-ion plasma with the heat flux based on not the MHD equations, but using the multicomponent plasma approach. We investigate a geometry in which the background magnetic field,…
We study a complex plasma under microgravity conditions that is first stabilized with an oscillating electric field. Once the stabilization is stopped, the so-called heartbeat instability develops. We study how the kinetic energy spectrum…
An object's wake in a plasma with small Debye length that drifts \emph{across} the magnetic field is subject to electrostatic electron instabilities. Such situations include, for example, the moon in the solar wind wake and probes in…
We discuss a theoretical interpretation of the experiment by Fletcher, Zhang, and Rolston [PRL, 96, 105003 (2006)], who revealed a number of subharmonics of the electron emission under external irradiation of the freely-expanding clouds of…
In this work linear stability analysis of a four-fluid optically thin plasma consisting of electrons, ions, neutral atoms, and charged dust particles is performed with respect to the radiation-condensation (RC) instability. The energy…
The onset and evolution of magnetic fields in laboratory and astrophysical plasmas is determined by several mechanisms, including instabilities, dynamo effects and ultra-high energy particle flows through gas, plasma and interstellar-media.…
We study collective processes for an electron beam propagating through a background plasma using simulations and analytical theory. A new regime where the instability of a Langmuir wave packet can grow locally much faster than ion frequency…
We study the electron firehose mode propagating parallel to the ambient magnetic field in the space plasma with anisotropic Cairns-distribution electrons. The dispersion relation, the wave frequency and the growth rate of electron firehose…
It was shown previously that the current-carrying state of a Field Effect Transistor with asymmetric source and drain boundary conditions may become unstable against spontaneous generation of plasma waves [1]. By extending the analysis to…
Weibel-type instability can self-generate and amplify magnetic fields in both space and laboratory plasmas with temperature anisotropy. The electron Weibel instability has generally proven more challenging to measure than its ion…
We report on the first experimental observation of a current-driven instability developing in a quasi-neutral matter-antimatter beam. Strong magnetic fields ($\geq$ 1 T) are measured, via means of a proton radiography technique, after the…
In plasmas with electron drift (current) relative to static ions, the ion acoustic wave is subject to the kinetic instability which takes place if the directed electron speed exceeds the ion acoustic speed. The instability threshold becomes…
We investigate the role of thermal instability, arising from radiative cooling of an optically thin, dusty plasma, by linear stability analysis. The corresponding isobaric stability condition for condensation mode is found to be modified…
We measure the expansion of an ultracold plasma across the field lines of a uniform magnetic field. We image the ion distribution by extracting the ions with a high voltage pulse onto a position-sensitive detector. Early in the lifetime of…