Published December 6, 1999
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Journal Article
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Alfvén-Wave Instability of Current Sheets in Force-Free Collisionless Plasmas
Abstract
If the current sheet between adjacent twisted magnetic flux tubes is sufficiently thin, the electron flow velocity becomes comparable to the Alfvén velocity and can destabilize collisionless Alfvén waves. The threshold for instability in force-free plasmas is calculated for both inertial and kinetic Alfvén-wave regimes. When there is strong magnetic shear, unstable kinetic Alfvén waves can resonantly accelerate ions to energies much higher than the electron temperature.
Additional Information
© 1999 The American Physical Society. Received 24 May 1999; revised 20 September 1999. The author wishes to thank the International Space Science Institute (Bern, Switzerland) for hosting a series of Alfvén-wave workshops which stimulated thought on this topic. This work was supported by USDOE.Attached Files
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Additional details
Identifiers
- Eprint ID
- 9348
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:BELprl99
Funding
- Department of Energy (DOE)
Dates
- Created
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2007-12-14Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field