Convective filamentation instability of circularly polarized Alfvén waves

S. P. Kuo, M. H. Whang, G. Schmidt

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

A convective instability that leads to the filamentation of large-amplitude Alfvén waves and generates nonoscillatory spatially growing density fluctuations is investigated by using a two-fluid plasma model. Based on linear perturbation analysis for a four-wave parametric coupling process, the dispersion relations of the instability for both a right- and left-hand circularly polarized Alfvén pump are derived. They are then solved numerically for the dependences of the threshold fields and growth rates on the wavenumber k of the nonoscillatory mode, the beta of the plasma, and the frequency of the pumps, for both right- and left-hand circularly polarized Alfvén pumps. The relevance of the proposed instability with some observations in the space plasmas is discussed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)734-740
Number of pages7
JournalPhysics of Fluids B
Volume1
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 1989

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computational Mechanics
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • General Physics and Astronomy
  • Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Convective filamentation instability of circularly polarized Alfvén waves'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this