Extension of temperature anisotropy Weibel instability to non-Maxwellian plasmas by 2D PIC simulation

Abstract

AbstractThe Weibel instability driven by temperature anisotropy is investigated in a two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell simulation in non-extensive statistics in the relativistic regime. In order to begin the simulation, we introduced a new 2D anisotropic distribution function in the context of non-extensive statistics. The heavy ions considered to be immobile and form the neutralizing background. The numerical results show that non-extensive parameterqplays an important role on the magnetic field saturation time, the time of reduction temperature anisotropy, evolution time to the quasi-stationary state, and the peak energy density of magnetic field. We observe that the instability saturation time increases by increasing the non-extensive parameterq. It is shown that structures with superthermal electrons (q< 1) could generate strong magnetic fields during plasma thermalization. The simulation results agree with the previous simulations for an anisotropic Maxwellian plasma (q= 1).