On the shear flow instability and its applications to multicomponent plasmas

Abstract

The classic shear flow instability is discussed and, in particular, the effect of the cancellation of the contribution of the diamagnetic drift in the convective derivative of the polarization drift against the relevant collisionless stress tensor part. This cancellation shows that the shear flow instability in a nonuniform plasma is basically the drift wave instability. If ions are considered to be hot, the shear flow instability criterion is modified even in the homogeneous limit due to the contribution of collisionless ion stress tensor. A comparison of our results with the existing literature on this topic is presented. The shear flow instability criteria are also investigated for electron-positron-ion plasma and for dusty plasma. In a dusty plasma with negatively charged dust grains, the instability appears in the presence of a negative shear flow gradient.