Properties of waves in an ion-beam plasma system

Abstract

In this paper a multi-fluid approach is used to describe electrostatic interactions in an ion-beam plasma system. The structure of the wave equation governing the system exhibits the anisotropic and dispersive nature of the waves, whose properties are analysed in terms of the dispersion relation. The main purpose of this paper is to classify the different waves that can arise in an ion-beam plasma system in a systematic fashion. The classification is facilitated by introducing a three-parameter CMA diagram that illustrates the topological changes in not only the wavenumber, or refractive-index, surface but also the ray-velocity surface. Furthermore, an analytic expression governing wave amplification in an ion-beam plasma is incorporated within the framework of a generalized CMA diagram. Such a description provides a simple interpretation for the onset of wave amplification in terms of a topological change in the refractive-index surface. It is hoped that by collating the wave properties in a unified form, many of the complicated wave features observed in an experiment may be interpreted more easily.