Electrostatic and whistler instabilities excited by an electron beam

Abstract

The electron beam-plasma system is ubiquitous in the space plasma environment. Here, using a Darwin particle-in-cell method, the excitation of electrostatic and whistler instabilities by a gyrating electron beam is studied in support of recent laboratory experiments. It is assumed that the total plasma frequency $\omega_{pe}$ is larger than the electron cyclotron frequency $\Omega_e$. The fast-growing electrostatic beam-mode waves saturate in a few plasma oscillations by slowing down and relaxing the electron beam parallel to the background magnetic field. Upon their saturation, the finite amplitude electrostatic beam-mode waves can resonate with the tail of the background thermal electrons and accelerate them to the beam parallel velocity. The slower-growing whistler waves are excited in primarily two resonance modes: (a) through Landau resonance due to the inverted slope of the beam electrons in the parallel velocity; (b) through cyclotron resonance by scattering electrons to both lower pitch angles and smaller energies. It is demonstrated that, for a field-aligned beam, the whistler instability can be suppressed by the electrostatic instability due to a faster energy transfer rate between beam electrons and the electrostatic waves. Such a competition of growth between whistler and electrostatic waves depends on the ratio of $\omega_{pe}/\Omega_e$. In terms of wave propagation, beam-generated electrostatic waves are confined to the beam region whereas beam-generated whistler waves transport energy away from the beam.