Nonlinear Stabilization of High-Frequency Instabilities in a Magnetic Field

Abstract

It is shown that the broadening of wave-particle resonances by the random motion of particles in a turbulent electric field may determine the saturation level of a variety of high-frequency instabilities. Secular changes of the guiding center positions, cyclotron radii, and phase angles give rise to resonance broadening and diffusion, similar to that produced by collisional scattering. The field dependent broadening is expressed in terms of resonance functions which replace the familiar resonant denominators of the linear theory. Resonance functions are derived in a simple manner from the solution of a Brownian motion problem, leading to an expression in terms of diffusion coefficients. The close resemblance of the theory to quasilinear theory and the linear theory including collisions allows one to start from a linear stability analysis and then assess the importance of nonlinear effects. This method is illustrated by the determination of the saturation level of cyclotron instabilities from the condition of vanishing nonlinear growth rate.