Decay instability of cirularly polarized waves into cirularly polarized and Langmuir waves in a magnetized plasma

Abstract

A study is made of a parametric instability in a magnetized plasma in which an electromagnetic pump wave of either right- or left-hand circular polarization decays into a Langmuir wave and another circularly polarized wave, all with wave vectors colinear with the external magnetic field. The analysis is based on a multiple-time-scale perturbation expansion of the fluid equations, incorporating the effects of temperature, collisions, and the spatial variation of the pump wave. The threshold values of the pump field intensity required for instability and the growth rates above threshold are calculated.