Laboratory measurements of electrostatic solitary structures generated by beam injection.
Electrostatic solitary structures are generated by injection of a suprathermal electron beam parallel to the magnetic field in a laboratory plasma. Electric microprobes with tips smaller than the Debye length (λDe) enabled the measurement of positive potential pulses with half-widths 4 to 25λDe and velocities 1 to 3 times the background electron thermal speed. Nonlinear wave packets of similar velocities and scales are also observed, indicating that the two descend from the same mode which is consistent with the electrostatic whistler mode and result from an instability likely to be driven by field-aligned currents.
Lefebvre
Bertrand
B
Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire 03824, USA. bertrand.lefebvre@unh.edu
Chen
Li-Jen
LJ
Gekelman
Walter
W
Kintner
Paul
P
Pickett
Jolene
J
Pribyl
Patrick
P
Vincena
Stephen
S
Chiang
Franklin
F
Judy
Jack
J