2016/06/10 by Rajawat, Roopendra Singh, Sengupta, Sudip
#FOS: Physical sciences #Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1606.03178
Spatio-temporal evolution of the relativistic Buneman instability has been investigated in one dimension using an in-house developed particle-in-cell simulation code. Starting from the excitation of the instability, its evolution has been followed numerically till its quenching and beyond. As compared to the well understood non-relativistic case, it is found that the maximum growth rate (γmax) reduces due to relativistic effects and varies with γe0 and m/M as γmax ∼ \frac√(3)2√γe0\biglb((m)/(2M)\bigrb)1/3, where γe0 is Lorentz factor associated with the initial electron drift velocity (v0) and (m/M) is the electron to ion mass ratio. Further it is observed that in contrast to the non-relativistic results[Hirose,Plasma Phys. 20, 481(1978)] at the saturation point, ratio of electrostatic field energy density (∑k |Ek|2/8π) to initial drift kinetic energy density (W0) scales with γe0 as ∼ 1/γ2e0. These simulation results are found to be in good agreement with that derived using fluid theory.