Abstract
In view of composition measurements in the night-time equatorial ionosphere, the role of molecular ions on the collisional Rayleigh–Taylor instability is examined using a linear perturbation analysis and a growth rate expression in the presence of double-ion species is obtained. The expression reveals that the growth rate depends on the number densities of both the ion species. This is in contrast to a single ionic constituent wherein the growth rate is independent of number density. The numerical calculation under realistic conditions reveals that the growth rate of the instability reduces with the introduction of the second dominant ion species and never exceeds the growth rate corresponding to a single ionic constituent. Further, the growth of the plasma instability is feasible even when the scale length of the second dominant ion is negative.
Published Version
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