Cosmic-ray current-driven instabilities -- revisiting environmental conditions

TL;DR

This paper revisits the environmental conditions affecting cosmic-ray driven instabilities, providing a new algorithm for dispersion relations and discussing implications for cosmic-ray confinement near sources.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized dispersion relation calculation method for arbitrary cosmic-ray distributions and anisotropies, enhancing understanding of plasma instabilities in cosmic-ray environments.

Findings

Cosmic-ray streaming in weakly ionised plasmas removes the evanescent band requirement.

Implications for gamma-ray observations of cosmic-ray sources.

Highlighting the need for multi-scale numerical simulations.

Abstract

The growth of magneto-hydrodynamic fluctuations relevant to cosmic ray confinement in and near their sources, and the effects of local plasma conditions is revisited. We consider cases where cosmic rays penetrate a medium which may contain a fraction of neutral particles, and explore the possible effects of high-order cosmic-ray anisotropies. An algorithm for calculating the dispersion relation for arbitrary distributions, and anisotropies is presented, and a general solution for power-law cosmic-ray distributions is provided. Implications for the resulting instabilities near to strong Galactic cosmic-ray sources are discussed. We argue that cosmic-ray streaming in weakly ionised plasmas eliminates the need for the existence of an evanescent band in the dispersion relation, a conclusion which may be confirmed by gamma-ray observations. The necessity for additional multi-scale numerical simulations is highlighted, as understanding the non-linear behaviour is crucial.