Characterization of the Initial Filamentation of a Relativistic Electron Beam Passing through a Plasma

2005/02/17 by Antoine Bret, A. Bret, M. -C. Firpo +2 · 8 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Laser-Plasma Interactions and Diagnostics #Magnetic confinement fusion research #Particle accelerators and beam dynamics #astro-ph #physics.plasm-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.94.115002

4 page, 3 figures, to appear in PRL

arxiv created 2005/02/17 · openalex publication_date 2005/03/22 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

The linear instability that induces a relativistic electron beam passing through a plasma with return current to filament transversely is often related to some filamentation mode with the wave vector normal to the beam or confused with Weibel modes. We show that these modes may not be relevant in this matter and identify the most unstable mode on the two-stream or filamentation branch as the main trigger for filamentation. This sets both the characteristic transverse and longitudinal filamentation scales in the nonresistive initial stage.

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