A comparison of weak-turbulence and PIC simulations of weak electron-beam plasma interaction

Abstract

Quasilinear theory has long been used to treat the problem of a weak electron beam interacting with plasma and generating Langmuir waves. Its extension to weak-turbulence theory treats resonant interactions of these Langmuir waves with other plasma wave modes, in particular ion-sound waves. These are strongly damped in plasma of equal ion and electron temperatures, as sometimes seen in, for example, the solar corona and wind. Weak turbulence theory is derived in the weak damping limit, with a term describing ion-sound wave damping then added. In this paper we use the EPOCH particle-in-cell code to numerically test weak turbulence theory for a range of electron-ion temperature ratios. We find that in the cold ion limit the results agree well, but increasing ion temperature the three-wave resonance becomes broadened in proportion to the ion-sound wave damping rate. This may be important in, for example, the theory of solar radio bursts, where the spectrum of Langmuir waves is critical. Additionally we establish lower limits on the number of simulation particles needed to accurately reproduce the electron and wave distributions in their saturated states, and to reproduce their intermediate states and time evolution.

arXiv commentAccepted by POP

References in corpus (7)

• Nonlinear development of electron-beam-driven weak turbulence in an inhomogeneous plasma
• Emission of Type II Radio Bursts - Single-Beam versus Two-Beam Scenario
• Large scale simulations of solar type III radio bursts: flux density, drift rate, duration and bandwidth
• The effect of wave-particle interactions on low energy cutoffs in solar flare electron spectra
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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Self-consistent particle-in-cell simulations of fundamental and harmonic plasma radio emission mechanisms
• Particle-in-cell and weak turbulence simulations of plasma emission
• A Fokker-Planck Framework for Studying the Diffusion of Radio Burst Waves in the Solar Corona
• Particle-in-cell simulations of the relaxation of electron beams in inhomogeneous solar wind plasmas
• Simulation of plasma emission in magnetized plasmas