HR: 14:15h
AN: SH32B-03    [PDF]
TI: Lower-hybrid-drift and modified-two-stream instabilities in current sheet equilibrium
AU: * Yoon, P H
EM: YoonP@IPST.UMD.EDU
AF: University of Maryland, IPST, UMD, College Park, MD 20742 United States
AU: Lui, A T
EM: Tony.Lui@jhuapl.edu
AF: Johns Hopkins Unversity, APL, JHU, Laurel, MD 20723 United States
AB: The present paper discusses the stability of thin current sheet against lower-hybrid-drift (LHDI) and modified-two-stream (MTSI) instabilities. It is demonstrated that MTSI is driven by the cross-field current, implying that MTSI should also be most effective at the neutral sheet, while LHDI is driven by the density gradient. It is shown that under a normal Harris current sheet condition, $V_i/|V_e|=T_i/T_e$, LHDI completely dominates the MTSI, which implies that current-driven instability cannot penetrate to the center of the Harris current sheet. However, if the Harris current sheet condition is relaxed to $V_i/|V_e|>T_i/T_e$, then MTSI is shown to gradually overtake LHDI. The present finding demonstrates the potentially more important role of MTSI in the ion-dominated thin current sheets.
DE: 7831 Laboratory studies
DE: 7835 Magnetic reconnection
DE: 7863 Turbulence
DE: 7867 Wave/particle interactions
DE: 7871 Waves and instabilities
SC: SPA - Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting