The electron-ion streaming instabilities driven by drift velocities of the order of electron thermal velocity in a nonmagnetized plasma

TL;DR

This study investigates electron-ion streaming instabilities in a nonmagnetized plasma with drift velocities near the electron thermal speed, revealing the coexistence and evolution of Langmuir, ion-acoustic, and Buneman waves through particle-in-cell simulations.

Contribution

It provides detailed simulation analysis of how streaming instabilities develop and interact at drift velocities around the electron thermal speed in nonmagnetized plasma.

Findings

Langmuir waves dominate early in the instability development.

Ion-acoustic and Buneman instabilities appear and coexist at certain drift velocities.

Density depressions propagate opposite to ion beams in the nonlinear stage.

Abstract

We examine the electron-ion streaming instabilities driven by drift velocities of the order of the electron thermal velocity in a nonmagnetized plasma by one-dimensional electrostatic particle-in-cell code which adopts an ion-to-electron mass ratio of 1600. An initial state is set up where the ion bulk speed is zero while the electrons drift relative to ions, and where electrons are much hotter. We examine in detail four runs where drift velocity is systematically varied from lower than to larger than the electron thermal velocity. In all runs the Langmuir waves with Doppler-shifted frequencies dominate early on when streaming instabilities are too weak to discern. And then intense ion-acoustic waves or Buneman instabilities appear, which tend to be accompanied by localized electron and ion beams. Ion-acoustic modes and Buneman modes co-exist in the system when the initial drift velocity is just over the electron thermal speed. Beam modes are excited when the localized beams with large enough velocities appear. In the developed stage of instabilities, the direction in which density depressions propagate is always opposite to that of the localized ion beams. When the initial drift velocity is close to the electron thermal speed, categorizing the relevant instabilities is not easy, and one needs to examine in detail the wave dispersion diagrams at various stages of the evolution of the system.