A new purely growing instability in a strongly magnetized nonuniform pair plasma

Abstract

It is shown that a strongly magnetized nonuniform electron–positron (hereafter referred to as e–p or pair) plasma is unstable against low-frequency (in comparison with the electron gyrofrequency) electrostatic oscillations. For this purpose, a dispersion relation is derived by using the Poisson equation as well as the electron and positron continuity equations with the guiding center drifts for the electron and positron fluids. The dispersion relation admits a purely growing instability in the presence of the equilibrium density and magnetic field inhomogeneities. Physically, instability arises because of the inhomogeneous magnetic field induced differential electron and positron density fluctuations, which do not keep in phase with the electrostatic potential arising from the charge separation in our nonuniform pair plasmas.