Stabilition of the lower hybrid instability excited by longitudinal currents in a collisional, multi-ion plasma

Abstract

We have investigated the stability of the lower hybrid wave in a collisional plasma containing hydrogen and positively and negatively charged oxygen ions. The collisions of all the species in the plasma have been considered. The electrons, streaming parallel to the magnetic field, can excite the instability if their drift velocity exceeds the parallel phase velocity of the wave. This is true for both the weakly as well as the strongly collisional cases. If the ion collisions are neglected, the growth/damping rate depends on the electron collision frequency and is modified by a factor dependent directly on the number densities and square of the charges on the oxygen ions and inversely on the masses of these ions. Ion collisions, however only damp the wave; this damping being dependent also on the ion collision frequencies, in addition to the above dependencies. We find that the dispersion relation in the low collisional limit can account for lower hybrid waves in the observed frequency range.