Filamentation instability of electron/ion beams in magnetized plasma waveguide

Abstract

The filamentation instability due to the interaction of two relativistic electron and ion beams with magnetized plasma in a waveguide is studied within the framework of a macroscopic cold fluid description. It is assumed that the background plasma provides charge and current neutralization of the injected beams. The dispersion relation is obtained by solving wave eigenvalue equation. The resulting dispersion equation is analyzed numerically over a wide range of system parameters. It is found that the velocity difference factor can strongly affect the filamentation instability.