Abstract
We study instabilities driven by a sheared plasma flow in the low-frequency domain. Two unstable branches are found: the ion-sound mode and the kinetic Alfvén mode. Both instabilities are aperiodic. The ion-sound instability does not depend on the plasma β (gas/magnetic pressure ratio) and has a maximum growth rate of about 0.1 of the velocity gradient dV 0/dx. On the other hand, the kinetic Alfvén instability is stronger for larger β and dominates the ion-sound instability for β > 0.05. Possible applications for space plasmas are shortly discussed.
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Siversky, T., Voitenko, Y. & Goossens, M. Shear Flow Instabilities in Low-Beta Space Plasmas. Space Sci Rev 121, 343–351 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-006-7182-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-006-7182-6