Abstract

We study ion-induced instability of flute-like (kz [approximately equal to] 0) diocotron modes in pure electron plasmas confined in a cylindrical Penning-Malmberg trap. In the absence of positive ion contamination, the low mθ diocotron modes are either neutrally stable (for mθ = 1) or weakly damped (for mθ = 2,3...) by Landau resonance on electrons corotating with the diocotron waves. By adding a small fraction (<1%) of positive ions into a double-well confinement configuration, we observe exponential instability of low mθ diocotron modes. The growth rates γm are directly proportional to the overall ion fraction, Ni/Ne, and proportional to an effective charge separation of electrons and ions in the periodic wave perturbation.

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