Instability in the Interaction of an Electron Beam and Plasma with an Arbitrary Anisotropic Electron Velocity Distribution Function. Kinetic Theory

Abstract

Based on the kinetic approach [1] , this work investigates the stability of the system consisting of a fast electron beam and a dense plasma at an arbitrary (anisotropic) electron velocity distribution function. It is shown that during the interaction of a fast electron beam with a cold plasma, both the conditions for losing stability and the growth rate of disturbances do not depend on the form of the electron distribution function (EDF) of a plasma and are determined only by the ratio of the electron beam energy to the mean energy in a plasma.