Langmuir condensation by spontaneous scattering off electrons in two dimensions

Abstract

In a pair of recent papers (Ziebell et al 2008 Phys. Plasmas 15 032303, 2008 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 50 085011) it was shown, within the context of weak turbulence theory, that the Langmuir turbulence generated by the bump-in-tail instability does not lead to Langmuir condensation (or accumulation of wave energy and momentum in the long-wavelength regime) in two dimensions. The present analysis finds that it is important to include the spontaneous scattering off Langmuir turbulence of the electrons, which is ignored in the customary literature when compared with a similar process involving ions, in order to recover the condensation of Langmuir waves in two dimensions.