Two-stream instability with time-dependent drift velocity

Abstract

The classical two-stream instability driven by a constant relative drift velocity between two plasma components is extended to the case with time-dependent drift velocity. A solution method is developed to rigorously define and calculate the instability growth rate for linear perturbations relative to the time-dependent unperturbed two-stream motions. The stability diagrams for the oscillating two-stream instability are presented over a large region of parameter space. It is shown that the growth rate for the classical two-stream instability can be significantly reduced by adding an oscillatory component to the relative drift velocity.