Open AccessIon acoustic‐like waves triggered by nonlinear circularly polarized waves in the presence of an alpha particle beam
Author(s) -
Gomberoff L.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.67
H-Index - 298
eISSN - 2156-2202
pISSN - 0148-0227
DOI - 10.1029/2006ja012053
Subject(s) - physics , ion acoustic wave , beam (structure) , proton , acoustic wave , plasma , solar wind , electron , atomic physics , computational physics , magnetic field , optics , nuclear physics , quantum mechanics
We consider a fast solar wind‐type plasma consisting of electrons, a protons background, and a much more tenuous alpha particle beam. It is shown that such system is unstable against ion acoustic‐like waves triggered by finite‐amplitude left‐hand polarized waves propagating in the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field. The ion acoustic‐like waves have similar properties to those found in a plasma with a much denser proton beam (Gomberoff, 2006b). Although the alpha particle beam is much more tenuous than the proton beam, the system is equally able to trigger ion acoustic‐like waves. Therefore we believe that this effect should be taken into account in the evolution of the fast solar wind.