On amplitude saturation of Buneman instability and anomalous resistivity

Abstract

It is shown that the electric field energy associated with the electron-ion two-stream instability saturates at (m/M)1/3n0mV2/4, and consequently, the minimum anomalous plasma conductivity is given by sigma approximately=(M/m)2/3 omega pe sigma approximately=(M/m)2/3 omega pe/2 pi , scaling as M2/3. Here M/m is the ion/electron mass ratio, and mV2/2 is the initial electron kinetic energy.