Relativistically modulational instability by strong Langmuir waves

Abstract

Based on the set of nonlinear coupling equations, which has considered the relativistic effects of electrons, modulational instability by strong Langmuir waves has been investigated in this paper. Both the characteristic scale and maximum growth rate of the Langmuir field will enhance with the increase in the electron relativistic effect. The numerical results indicate that longitudinal perturbations induce greater instability than transverse perturbations do, which will lead to collapse and formation of the pancake-like structure. V C 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.

Modulational instability of a Langmuir wave in plasmas with energetic tails of superthermal electrons

“…In our paper, we study the dispersion properties of much hotter plasma that is typical to the laboratory beam-plasma experiments, and we focus on the validity of various widely used approximations. Investigations of modulational instability in relativistic plasmas with the Maxwell-Jüttner distribution [16,17] or in the kappa-distributed plasmas with nonrelativistic superthermal tails [18,19] are also of interest in last years. In contrast to these papers, we consider the modulational instability of a Langmuir wave in an unmagnetized plasma with the relativistic power-law momentum distribution of plasma electrons.…”