Linear instability of Vlasov-Maxwell systems revisited-A Hamiltonian approach

Abstract

We consider linear stability of steady states of 1(1/2) and 3D Vlasov-Maxwell systems for collisionless plasmas. The linearized systems can be written as separable Hamiltonian systems with constraints. By using a general theory for separable Hamiltonian systems, we recover the sharp linear stability criteria obtained previously by different approaches. Moreover, we obtain the exponential trichotomy estimates for the linearized Vlasov-Maxwell systems in both relativistic and nonrelativistic cases.