Instability of the Brillouin-Flow Equilibrium in Magnetically Insulated Structures

Abstract

Presented herein is a fully electromagnetic and relativistic stability analysis of the Brillouin-flow equilibrium for magnetic insulation in planar geometry. Instability of TM waves propagating in the direction of the sheared electron flow is found. This instability occurs at short wavelengths at frequencies above the cyclotron and plasma frequencies relevant to the system. It is found that relativistic effects can make the maximum instability growth rate normalized to the cyclotron frequency substantially lower than the nonrelativistic value (0.06).