8,291 research outputs found
Theory of stability of large amplitude periodic /BGK/ waves in collisionless plasmas
Stability theory of large amplitude periodic BGK waves in collisionless plasmas using distribution function
Buneman instability in a magnetized current-carrying plasma with velocity shear
Buneman instability is often driven in magnetic reconnection. Understanding
how velocity shear in the beams driving the Buneman instability affects the
growth and saturation of waves is relevant to turbulence, heating, and
diffusion in magnetic reconnection. Using a Mathieu-equation analysis for weak
cosine velocity shear together with Vlasov simulations, the effects of shear on
the kinetic Buneman instability are studied in a plasma consisting of strongly
magnetized electrons and cold unmagnetized ions. In the linearly unstable
phase, shear enhances the coupling between oblique waves and the sheared
electron beam, resulting in a wider range of unstable eigenmodes with common
lower growth rates. The wave couplings generate new features of the electric
fields in space, which can persist into the nonlinear phase when electron holes
form. Lower hybrid instabilities simultaneously occur at
with a much lower growth
rate, and are not affected by the velocity shear.Comment: Accepted by Physics of Plasm
Solar radio emission
Active areas of both observational and theoretical research in which rapid progress is being made are discussed. These include: (1) the dynamic spectrum or frequency versus time plot; (2) physical mechanisms in the development of various types of bursts; (3) microwave type 1, 2, 3, and moving type 4 bursts; (4) bursts caused by trapped electrons; (5) physics of type 3bursts; (6) the physics of type 2 bursts and their related shocks; (7) the physics of both stationary and moving traps and associated type 1 and moving type 4 bursts; and (8) the status of the field of solar radio emission
Quenching of the beam-plasma instability by 3-D spectra of large scale density fluctuations
A model is presented to explain the highly variable yet low level of Langmuir waves measured in situ by spacecraft when electron beams associated with Type III solar bursts are passing by; the low level of excited waves allows the propagation of such streams from the Sun to well past 1 AU without catastrophic energy losses. The model is based, first, on the existence of large scale density fluctuations that are able to efficiently diffuse small k beam unstable Langmuir waves in phase space, and, second, on the presence of a significantly isotropic nonthermal tail in the distribution function of the background electron population, which is capable of stabilizing larger k modes. The strength of the model lies in its ability to predict various levels of Langmuir waves depending on the parameters. This feature is consistent with the high variability actually observed in the measurements
Bottom-loading dilution refrigerator with ultra-high vacuum deposition capability
A Kelvinox 400 dilution refrigerator with the ability to load samples onto
the mixing chamber from the bottom of the cryostat has been combined with an
ultrahigh-vacuum (UHV) deposition chamber equipped with molecular beam sources.
The liquid helium cooled sample transfer mechanism is used in a manner that
allows films to be grown on substrates which are kept at temperatures of order
8K with chamber pressures in the 10^-9 to 10^-10 Torr range. This system
facilitates the growth of quench-condensed ultrathin films which must always be
kept below ~ 12K in a UHV environment during and after growth. Measurements can
be made on the films down to millikelvin temperatures and in magnetic fields up
to 15 T.Comment: 10 pages text, 1figur
Multi-beam Energy Moments of Multibeam Particle Velocity Distributions
High resolution electron and ion velocity distributions, f(v), which consist
of N effectively disjoint beams, have been measured by NASA's Magnetospheric
Multi-Scale Mission (MMS) observatories and in reconnection simulations.
Commonly used standard velocity moments generally assume a single
mean-flow-velocity for the entire distribution, which can lead to
counterintuitive results for a multibeam f(v). An example is the (false)
standard thermal energy moment of a pair of equal and opposite cold particle
beams, which is nonzero even though each beam has zero thermal energy. By
contrast, a multibeam moment of two or more beams has no false thermal energy.
A multibeam moment is obtained by taking a standard moment of each beam and
then summing over beams. In this paper we will generalize these notions,
explore their consequences and apply them to an f(v) which is sum of
tri-Maxwellians. Both standard and multibeam energy moments have coherent and
incoherent forms. Examples of incoherent moments are the thermal energy
density, the pressure and the thermal energy flux (enthalpy flux plus heat
flux). Corresponding coherent moments are the bulk kinetic energy density, the
RAM pressure and the bulk kinetic energy flux. The false part of an incoherent
moment is defined as the difference between the standard incoherent moment and
the corresponding multibeam moment. The sum of a pair of corresponding coherent
and incoherent moments will be called the undecomposed moment. Undecomposed
moments are independent of whether the sum is standard or multibeam and
therefore have advantages when studying moments of measured f(v).Comment: 27 single-spaced pages. Three Figure
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