Quenching of the beam-plasma instability by 3-D spectra of large scale density fluctuations

Abstract

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