Generation of forerunner electron beam during interaction of ion beam pulse with plasma

Abstract

The long-time evolution of the two-stream instability of a cold ion beam pulse propagating though the background plasma is investigated using a large-scale one-dimensional electrostatic kinetic simulation. The three stages of the instability are identified and investigated in detail. After the initial linear growth and saturation by the electron trapping, a portion of the initially trapped electrons becomes detrapped and moves ahead of the ion beam pulse forming a {forerunner} electron beam, which causes a secondary two-stream instability that preheats the upstream plasma electrons. Consequently, the self-consistent nonlinear-driven turbulent state is set up at the head of the ion beam pulse with the saturated plasma wave sustained by the influx of the cold electrons from the upstream of the beam that lasts until the final stage when the beam ions become trapped by the plasma wave. The beam ion trapping leads to the nonlinear heating of the beam ions that eventually extinguishes the instability.

References in corpus (4)

• Simultaneous Acceleration of Protons and Electrons at Nonrelativistic Quasiparallel Collisionless Shocks
• Kinetic simulations of ladder climbing by electron plasma waves
• Short intense ion pulses for materials and warm dense matter research
• Intense Ion Beam Neutralization Using Underdense Background Plasma

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Amplification due to Two-Stream Instability of Self-Electric and Magnetic Fields of an Ion Beam Propagating in Background Plasma
• Backward waves in the nonlinear regime of the Buneman instability
• Effect of Ion Motion on Breaking of Longitudinal Relativistically Strong Plasma Waves: Khachatryan mode revisited