Importance of Resolving the Spectral Support of Beam-plasma Instabilities in Simulations
Abstract
Many astrophysical plasmas are prone to beam-plasma instabilities. For relativistic and dilute beams, the spectral support of the beam-plasma instabilities is narrow, i.e., the linearly unstable modes that grow with rates comparable to the maximum growth rate occupy a narrow range of wavenumbers. This places stringent requirements on the box-sizes when simulating the evolution of the instabilities. We identify the implied lower limits on the box size imposed by the longitudinal beam plasma instability, i.e., typically the most stringent condition required to correctly capture the linear evolution of the instabilities in multidimensional simulations. We find that sizes many orders of magnitude larger than the resonant wavelength are typically required. Using one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we show that the failure to sufficiently resolve the spectral support of the longitudinal instability yields slower growth and lower levels of saturation, potentially leading to erroneous physical conclusion.
Additional Information
© 2017 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2017 March 23; revised 2017 June 20; accepted 2017 September 5; published 2017 October 13. M.S. and A.E.B. receive financial support from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through a Discovery Grant. Research at the Perimeter Institute is supported by the Government of Canada through Industry Canada and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Research and Innovation. P.C. gratefully acknowledges support from the NASA ATP program through NASA grant NNX13AH43G, and the NSF through grant AST-1255469. C.P. gratefully acknowledges support by the European Research Council through ERC-CoG grant CRAGSMAN-646955 and by the Klaus Tschira Foundation. E.P. gratefully acknowledges support by the Kavli Foundation. Support for A.L. was provided by an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, NASA ATP Grant NNX14AH35G, and NSF Collaborative Research Grant #1411920 and CAREER grant #1455342.Attached Files
Published - Shalaby_2017_ApJ_848_81.pdf
Submitted - 1704.00014.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 82445
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20171018-081955291
- Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Industry Canada
- Province of Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation
- NNX13AH43G
- NASA
- AST-1255469
- NSF
- CRAGSMAN-646955
- European Research Council (ERC)
- Klaus Tschira Foundation
- Kavli Foundation
- Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship
- NNX14AH35G
- NASA
- AST-1411920
- NSF
- AST-1455342
- NSF
- Created
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2017-10-18Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field