Title :
Farley-Buneman instability in the weakly ionised medium
Author :
Pandey, B.P. ; Vladimirov, S.V.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Phys. & Astron., Macquarie Univ., Sydney, NSW, Australia
Abstract :
The Farley-Buneman instability (FBI) which is electrostatic streaming instability is known to create plasma irregularities in the ionospheric E-regions at height where electrons are strongly magnetised and ions are unmagnetised. The interplay between Earth´s electric and magnetic field give rise to cross field motion of the ionised medium leading to this instability. The relative motion between plasma and neutral particles due to collisional drag of the ions by the neutral flows can also cause the development of similar instability. However, in a weakly ionised medium, inertia of the neutral matter can no longer be overlooked. Therefore, investigation of FBI in weakly ionised medium should be considered incomplete. The neglect of neutral dynamics is justified for the high frequency fluctuations. However, when fluctuation frequencies are low or ultra low, neutral dynamics can not be overlooked. The role of neutral in exciting FBI in magnetised electron and weakly magnetised ion plasma is investigated. The results are applied to the structure formation in the lower mesosphere.
Keywords :
E-region; mesosphere; plasma instability; Earth electric field; Earth magnetic field; FBI; Farley-Buneman instability; cross field motion; electrostatic streaming instability; fluctuation frequency; ion collisional drag; ionospheric E-region; lower mesosphere; neutral flow; neutral matter inertia; neutral particles; plasma irregularity; plasma motion; strongly magnetised electron; structure formation; unmagnetised ions; weakly ionised medium; weakly magnetised ion plasma; Astronomy; Australia; Educational institutions; Fluctuations; Ions; Physics; Plasmas;
Conference_Titel :
Plasma Science (ICOPS), 2012 Abstracts IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Edinburgh
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4577-2127-4
Electronic_ISBN :
0730-9244
DOI :
10.1109/PLASMA.2012.6383588