Spontaneously Growing Transverse Waves in a Plasma Due to an Anisotropic Velocity Distribution

Abstract

Self-excited transverse electromagnetic waves which involve only the electrons were found to exist in plasmas provided the velocity distribution is sufficiently anisotropic. Their existence and rate of growth are derived from the Boltzmam transport equation, neglecting the collision term and retaining only linear terms of the perturbation. (W.D.M.)