Radiation from an electron beam in magnetized plasma : excitation of a whistler mode wave packet by interacting, higher-frequency, electrostatic-wave eigenmodes

• Infrequent, bursty, electromagnetic, whistler-mode wave packets, excited spontaneously in the laboratory by an electron beam from a hot cathode, appear transiently, each with a time duration tau around similar to 1 mu s. The wave packets have a center frequency f(W) that is broadly distributed in the range 7 MHz < f(W) < 40 MHz. They are excited in a region with separate electrostatic (es) plasma oscillations at values of f(hf), 200 MHz < f(hf) < 500 MHz, that are hypothesized to match eigenmode frequencies of an axially localized hf es field in a well-defined region attached to the cathode. Features of these es-eigenmodes that are studied include: the mode competition at times of transitions from one dominating es-eigenmode to another, the amplitude and spectral distribution of simultaneously occurring es-eigenmodes that do not lead to a transition, and the correlation of these features with the excitation of whistler mode waves. It is concluded that transient coupling of es-eigenmode pairs at f(hf) such that vertical bar f(1, hf) - f(2, hf)vertical bar = f(W) < f(ge) can explain both the transient lifetime and the frequency spectra of the whistler-mode wave packets (f(W)) as observed in lab. The generalization of the results to bursty whistler-mode excitation in space from electron beams, created on the high potential side of double layers, is discussed.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Rymd- och flygteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Aerospace Engineering (hsv//eng)

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