3,021 research outputs found
The electron beam instability revisited: Growth above and below f sub p
The growth of electrostatic waves near the plasma frequency (fp) due to an unstable electron beam is investigated by solving the unmagnetized electrostatic dispersion equation numerically. The numerical solutions are compared with analytic theories for reactive (or fluid-type) and kinetic versions of the beam instability, and for the O'Neil/Malmberg connection of the beam and Langmuir modes. Conditions for growth significantly above or below fp are given. Three general results are found: (1) The unstable waves do not grow on a mode with Langmuir dispersion except in the limit of a very dilute beam with growth on O'Neil/Malmberg's connected mode; (2) The properties of the unstable mode depend strongly on beam parameters such as beam density, speed and temperature; and (3) The frequency of maximum growth frequently lies significantly above or below fp, and differs significantly from that predicted by the Langmuir dispersion relation. Results imply important consequences for theories of strong turbulence and nonlinear wave-wave processes, and observational identification of fp from observed wave frequencies
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The Convergence of Player Experience Questionnaires
Player experience is an important field of digital games research to understand how games influence players. A common way to directly measure players’ reported experiences is through questionnaires. However, the large number of questionnaires currently in use introduces several challenges both in terms of selecting suitable measures and comparing results across studies. In this paper, we review some of the most widely known and used questionnaires and focus on the immersive experience questionnaire (IEQ), the game engagement questionnaire (GEQ), and the player experience of need satisfaction (PENS), with the aim to position each of them in relation to each other. This was done through an online survey, in which we gathered 270 responses from players about their most recent experience of a digital game. Our findings show considerable convergence between these three questionnaires and that there is room to refine them into a more widely applicable measure of general game engagement
Intrinsic Variability and Field Statistics for the Vela Pulsar: 2. Systematics and Single-Component Fits
Individual pulses from pulsars have intensity-phase profiles that differ
widely from pulse to pulse, from the average profile, and from phase to phase
within a pulse. Widely accepted explanations do not exist for this variability
or for the mechanism producing the radiation. The variability corresponds to
the field statistics, particularly the distribution of wave field amplitudes,
which are predicted by theories for wave growth in inhomogeneous media. This
paper shows that the field statistics of the Vela pulsar (PSR B0833-45) are
well-defined and vary as a function of pulse phase, evolving from Gaussian
intensity statistics off-pulse to approximately power-law and then lognormal
distributions near the pulse peak to approximately power-law and eventually
Gaussian statistics off-pulse again. Detailed single-component fits confirm
that the variability corresponds to lognormal statistics near the peak of the
pulse profile and Gaussian intensity statistics off-pulse. The lognormal field
statistics observed are consistent with the prediction of stochastic growth
theory (SGT) for a purely linear system close to marginal stability. The
simplest interpretations are that the pulsar's variability is a direct
manifestation of an SGT state and the emission mechanism is linear (either
direct or indirect), with no evidence for nonlinear mechanisms like
modulational instability and wave collapse which produce power-law field
statistics. Stringent constraints are placed on nonlinear mechanisms: they must
produce lognormal statistics when suitably ensemble-averaged. Field statistics
are thus a powerful, potentially widely applicable tool for understanding
variability and constraining mechanisms and source characteristics of coherent
astrophysical and space emissions.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures. Accepted by Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronmical Society in April 200
Phase and Intensity Distributions of Individual Pulses of PSR B0950+08
The distribution of the intensities of individual pulses of PSR B0950+08 as a
function of the longitudes at which they appear is analyzed. The flux density
of the pulsar at 111 MHz varies strongly from day to day (by up to a factor of
13) due to the passage of the radiation through the interstellar plasma
(interstellar scintillation). The intensities of individual pulses can exceed
the amplitude of the mean pulse profile, obtained by accumulating 770 pulses,
by more than an order of magnitude. The intensity distribution along the mean
profile is very different for weak and strong pulses. The differential
distribution function for the intensities is a power law with index n = -1.1 +-
0.06 up to peak flux densities for individual pulses of the order of 160 Jy
Physics of magnetospheric boundary layers
The central ideas of this grant are that the magnetospheric boundary layers link disparate regions of the magnetosphere together, and the global behavior of the magnetosphere can be understood only by understanding the linking mechanisms. Accordingly the present grant includes simultaneous research on the global, meso-, and micro-scale physics of the magnetosphere and its boundary layers. These boundary layers include the bow shock, magnetosheath, the plasma sheet boundary layer, and the ionosphere. Analytic, numerical and simulation projects have been performed on these subjects, as well as comparison of theoretical results with observational data. Very good progress has been made, with four papers published or in press and two additional papers submitted for publication during the six month period 1 June - 30 November 1993. At least two projects are currently being written up. In addition, members of the group have given papers at scientific meetings. The further structure of this report is as follows: section two contains brief accounts of research completed during the last six months, while section three describes the research projects intended for the grant's final period
Social reproduction theory revisited
Social reproduction theory names at least two distinct traditions, one of which has a long history in educational research. Social reproduction theory in education emerged out of a concern with education’s relationship to capitalist inequalities. By contrast, social reproduction feminism developed out of feminist interventions regarding the role of women’s unpaid care-work in the reproduction of capitalism. In this paper, we suggest that the renewed energy surrounding social reproduction feminism provides an opportunity to revisit social reproduction theorizing in education. We review the fields’ histories and ready the ground for
an integrated framework. At the heart of this integration is a feminist analysis of reproductive labor in its contradictory relationship to capitalism. Expanding the analysis from the reproduction of capitalist relations to the reproduction of life under capitalism, this approach avoids the pitfalls of determinism and attends to students’ participation and teachers’ work in the contested labor of social reproduction
Retrieval of Volcanic and Man-Made Stratospheric Aerosols from Orbital Polarimetric Measurements
Stratospheric aerosols that are caused by a major volcanic eruption can serve as a valuable test of global climate models, as well as severely complicate tropospheric-aerosol monitoring from space. In either case, it is highly desirable to have accurate global information on the optical thickness, size, and composition of volcanic aerosols. We report sensitivity study results, which analyze the implications of making precise multi-angle photopolarimetric measurements in a 1.378-m spectral channel residing within a strong water-vapor absorption band. We demonstrate that, under favorable conditions, such measurements would enable near-perfect retrievals of the optical thickness, effective radius, and refractive index of stratospheric aerosols. Besides enabling accurate retrievals of volcanic aerosols, such measurements can also be used to monitor man-made particulates injected in the stratosphere for geoengineering purposes
Statistics of Auroral Langmuir Waves
The Physics of Auroral Zone Electrons II (PHAZE II) sounding rocket was launched in February 1997 into active pre-midnight aurora. The resulting high frequency wave data are dominated by Langmuir waves. Consistent with many previous observations the Langmuir waves are sporadic, occurring in bursts lasting up to a few hundred ms. We compute statistics of the electric field amplitudes of these Langmuir waves, with two results. First, the shape of the distribution of running averages of the electric field amplitudes remains approximately stationary for a large range of widths of running average less than ~0.3 ms and for a large range of widths exceeding about 1 ms. The interpretation of this transition timescale is unclear but appears unlikely to be of instrumental origin. Second, for 2.6-ms running averages, corresponding to the latter range, the distribution of the logarithm of electric field amplitudes matches a Gaussian form very well for all nine cases studied in detail, hence the statistics are lognormal. These distributions are consistent with stochastic growth theory (SGT)
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