Drift Waves in Multicomponent Plasma

Abstract

Low frequency electrostatic drift waves are studied in multi-component plasmas including usual electron-ion (EI), electron-positron ion (EPI) and dusty plasmas. Cancellation of the contribution of the diamagnetic term in the convective derivative of the ion polarization drift with the collision-less part of the stress tensor is discussed in detail in the case of hot ions. Fourier analysis has been performed to obtain the coupled linear dispersion relation of drift wave and ion acoustic wave (IAW) in electron-ion plasma. Keeping in view this cancellation, the dispersion relation of drift waves in hot ions plasma is derived using the two fluid plasma model. The effect of field-aligned shear flow on the instability of drift waves has also been studied. The propagation characteristics of the drift waves in EPI and dusty plasmas have been investigated and several limiting cases have been discussed. The growth rates of drift wave instability in (EI) plasmas have been estimated numerically using plasma parameters of Joint European Tokamak (JET) and terrestrial ionosphere. It has been shown that the drift wave can become unstable in JET if the parallel shear flow effect is taken into account.