Effects of electron temperature anisotropy on proton mirror instability evolution

Abstract

Proton mirror modes are large amplitude nonpropagating structures frequently observed in the magnetosheath. It has been suggested that electron temperature anisotropy can enhance the proton mirror instability growth rate while leaving the proton cyclotron instability largely unaffected, therefore causing the proton mirror instability to dominate the proton cyclotron instability in Earth's magnetosheath. Here, we use particle-in-cell simulations to investigate the electron temperature anisotropy effects on proton mirror instability evolution. Contrary to the hypothesis, electron temperature anisotropy leads to excitement of the electron whistler instability. Our results show that the electron whistler instability grows much faster than the proton mirror instability and quickly consumes the electron free energy, so that there is no electron temperature anisotropy left to significantly impact the evolution of the proton mirror instability.

11 pages, 19 figures

References in corpus (1)

• The Plasma Simulation Code: A modern particle-in-cell code with load-balancing and GPU support

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Generation of Electron Whistler Waves at the Mirror Mode Magnetic Holes: MMS Observations and PIC Simulation
• Quasilinear approach of the cumulative whistler instability in fast solar winds: Constraints of electron temperature anisotropy
• Microinstabilities in the Transition Region of Weak Quasi-Perpendicular Intracluster Shocks
• Simulation of Observed Magnetic Holes in the Magnetosheath