Numerical Study of Ion Heating Due to Nonlinear Landau Damping in an Ion Beam-Plasma System

Abstract

Ion heating due to nonlinear Landau damping in an ion beam-plamsa system is studied numerically by solving a set of equations representing the distortion of ion velocity distribution by this instability, where fast or slow space charge wave of an ion beam decays into Trivelpiece-Gould mode by nonlinear interaction with plasma ions and causes ion heating. A nonlinear Landau damping of a usual type by fast space charge wave shows that the ion temperature grows almost exponentially in initial time and saturates. A nonlinear Landau damping of an explosive type by slow space charge wave with negative energy exhibit an explosion of ion temperature and amplitude of all related waves at an explosion time. Considering effect of ion heating which makes nonlinear wave-particle coupling coefficients reduced, it is found that the explosion time of ion heating by slow space charge wave becomes several times larger than the original explosion time.