Ion-acoustic enhancements generated by beam-plasma instability in an auroral cavity

Abstract

[1] This article demonstrates the generation of enhanced ion-acoustic waves by beam-plasma instability in a density cavity. The self-consistent equations of weak turbulence theory that include quasi-linear, decay, and scattering processes as well as convective and dispersive effects are numerically solved for a one-dimensional density cavity. It is shown that significant enhancements of ion-acoustic waves occur in the presence of counterstreaming electron beams and that the enhanced ion-acoustic waves are initially localized near the center of the density cavity at large wavelengths. Later in the evolution, the enhancement in the spectrum of ion-acoustic waves spreads out toward the edges of the cavity, with a shift to smaller wavelengths, while the enhancement near the center of the cavity tends to decrease in magnitude. The significance of the present findings is discussed.