Electron mirror instability: particle-in-cell simulations. (4th July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hellinger, Petr; Štverák, Štěpán
• Is Part Of: Journal of plasma physics. Volume 84:Number 4(2018)
• Publication Date: 2018-07-04
• Subjects: astrophysical plasmas, -- plasma instabilities, -- plasma nonlinear phenomena; Plasma (Ionized gases) -- Periodicals; 530.4405
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022377818000703
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0022-3778

Abstract

Abstract : Properties of the electron mirror instability and its competition with the usually dominant whistler (electron cyclotron) instability driven by the electron perpendicular temperature anisotropy are investigated at the linear level using a Vlasov linear solver and at the nonlinear level using a two-dimensional full particle code. The simulation results show that the linearly subdominant electron mirror instability may compete at the nonlinear level with the whistler instability and may even eventually become the dominant mode that generates robust non-propagating sub-ion-scale coherent structures in the form of magnetic peaks.