title: Thin-shell instability in collisionless plasma.
abstract: Thin-shell instability is one process which can generate entangled structures in astrophysical plasma on collisional (fluid) scales. It is driven by a spatially varying imbalance between the ram pressure of the inflowing upstream plasma and the downstream's thermal pressure at a nonplanar shock. Here we show by means of a particle-in-cell simulation that an analog process can destabilize a thin shell formed by two interpenetrating, unmagnetized, and collisionless plasma clouds. The amplitude of the shell's spatial modulation grows and saturates after about ten inverse proton plasma frequencies, when the shell consists of connected piecewise linear patches.
authors.affiliation: Department of Science and Technology, Linköping University, SE-60174 Norrköping, Sweden.
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Dieckmann
authors.affiliation: Centre for Plasma Physics (CPP), Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.affiliation: Centre for Plasma Physics (CPP), Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Doria
authors.affiliation: Centre for Plasma Physics (CPP), Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sarri
authors.affiliation: École Normale Supérieure, Lyon, CRAL, UMR CNRS 5574, Université de Lyon, Lyon, France.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Walder
authors.affiliation: École Normale Supérieure, Lyon, CRAL, UMR CNRS 5574, Université de Lyon, Lyon, France.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Folini
authors.affiliation: ETSI Industriales, Universidad Castilla La Mancha, E-13 071 Ciudad Real, Spain.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bret
authors.affiliation: Department of Science and Technology, Linköping University, SE-60174 Norrköping, Sweden.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ynnerman
authors.affiliation: Centre for Plasma Physics (CPP), Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Borghesi