Excitation of high frequency electrostatic drift waves in inhomogeneous magnetized plasma investigated with detailed analysis of dispersion relation

TL;DR

This paper derives a nonlinear equation and dispersion relation to analyze the excitation and stability of high frequency electrostatic drift waves in inhomogeneous magnetized plasma, revealing conditions for their instability and relevance to laboratory and astrophysical plasmas.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed dispersion relation for high frequency electrostatic drift waves in inhomogeneous plasma, highlighting their excitation mechanisms and stability conditions.

Findings

Coupled high frequency electrostatic drift and ion cyclotron waves become unstable due to density gradients.

Uncoupled high frequency electrostatic drift waves are stable without collisional effects.

Potential excitation of these waves in tokamaks and solar corona environments.

Abstract

A second order nonlinear equation with variable coefficients has been derived to govern the dynamics of high frequency electrostatic drift waves in an inhomogeneous magnetized plasma in a moving frame of (2 + 1) spatio-temporal dimensions. A cubic dispersion relation having complex coefficients has been derived using the fluid model equations which explains the excitation of the high frequency electrostatic drift waves in addition to coupled ion cyclotron and drift waves. This has been studied in detail using the three exact roots of the cubic dispersion relation in the parameter space implying that the coupled high frequency electrostatic drift and ion cyclotron wave becomes unstable solely due to density gradient whereas the uncoupled high frequency electrostatic drift waves are stable in absence of collisional effects. The possibilities of excitation of the uncoupled high frequency electrostatic drift waves have been explored in context of certain laboratory and astrophysical plasma systems including tokamaks and solar corona where existence of steeper density gradients is more probable.