We consider the linear axisymmetric stability of a differentially rotating collisionless plasma in the presence of a weak magnetic field; we restrict our analysis to wavelengths much larger than the proton Larmor radius. This is the kinetic version of the magnetorotational instability explored extensively as a mechanism for magnetic field amplification and angular momentum transport in accretio...

Ever since conception of the vacuum arc centrifuge in 1980, periodic fluctuations in the ion saturation current and floating potential have been observed in Langmuir probe measurements in the rotation region of a vacuum arc centrifuge. In this work we develop a linearized theoretical model to describe a range of instabilities in the vacuum arc centrifuge plasma column, and then test the validit...

A 200-eV electron beam is incident on an electrode in a laboratory plasma. The emission of secondary electrons produces a region of negative differential resistance in the current-voltage characteristic of the electrode. Spontaneous dynatron oscillations are driven by the negative differential resistance when a resonant circuit is placed in series with the electrode. The instability is driven b...

The hadronization of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) possibly produced in the early universe or in high-energy heavy-ion collisions may proceed in a number of different ways, depending on the nature of the QCD phase transition. In the heavy-ion case, some results from CERNSPS and BNL-RHIC suggest what has been called sudden hadronization [1] or explosive behavior [2, 3]. From the theoretical side,...

The negative-mass instability, previously found in ion traps, appears as a distinct regime of the sideband instability in nonlinear plasma waves with trapped particles. As the bounce frequency of these particles decreases with the bounce action, bunching can occur if the action distribution is inverted in trapping islands. In contrast to existing theories that also infer instabilities from the ...

For more than a decade the vertical position instability intrinsic to vertically elongated tokamak plasmas has been relatively well understood. Controllers that stabilize this instability have been in routine use at experimental devices since the 1980’s. However, most of the analysis of this instability has been restricted to low order approximations, often just one state, from which understand...

The cosmic ray current-driven (CRCD) instability, predicted by Bell (2004), consists of non-resonant, growing plasma waves driven by the electric current of cosmic rays (CRs) that stream along the magnetic field ahead of both relativistic and non-relativistic shocks. Combining an analytic, kinetic model with one-, two-, and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we confirm the existenc...

A broad sample of fluid models for instability-driven plasma turbulence is surveyed to determine whether saturation involving damped eigenmodes requires special physics or is a common property of plasma turbulence driven by instability. Previous investigations have focused exclusively on turbulence in the core of tokamak discharges. The models surveyed here apply to a wide range of physical mec...

An axial–azimuthal two-dimensional Hall thruster discharge model was developed for analyzing gradient drift instability (GDI) and cross field electron transport enhancement induced solely by the GDI. A hybrid particle-fluid used partially ionized plasma, where inertialess fluid in quasineutral plasma assumed. nonoscillatory numerical method proposed potential solver to avoid analyze physics of ...

A linear approach to the phenomenon of irregular amplitude modulation of beam-driven Langmuir waves, developed in a previous paper, is extended to explain periodic modulation as well. It comes about by beating of the fastest growing mode of the instability with beam-aligned plasma oscillations. They are naturally generated in a uniform domain of beam–plasma interaction prior to the onset of the...