The Influence of Guiding Field on Low-frequency Electromagnetic Instabilities in Collisionless Current Sheets

This work investigates the effect of guiding field on low-frequency electromagnetic instabilities in collisionless current sheets using the dispersion relation obtained in the collisionless and compressible magnetohydrodynamic model. The results in the following three cases show that the guiding fie...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chinese astronomy and astrophysics 2008-04, Vol.32 (2), p.119-128
Main Authors: Wei, Xin-hua, Cao, Jin-bin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
magnetohydrodynamics
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Summary:This work investigates the effect of guiding field on low-frequency electromagnetic instabilities in collisionless current sheets using the dispersion relation obtained in the collisionless and compressible magnetohydrodynamic model. The results in the following three cases show that the guiding field can strongly affect the 3-dimensional propagating disturbed waves. (1) On the middle plane of the current sheet ( z = 0), if there is no guiding field, then no instability is observed. But if there a guiding field, then instability can take place. (2) Near the middle plane of the current sheet ( z = 0.2), the current sheet becomes unstable. With increasing the intensity of the guiding field, the instability grows obviously. The wave mode may be whistler or low-hybrid wave. (3) Near the edge of the current sheet ( z = 0.8), the guiding field exhibits no evident effect and the unstable wave mode is a quasi-parallel whistler wave.
ISSN:0275-1062
1879-128X
DOI:10.1016/j.chinastron.2008.04.009