Ionization wave as an Instability — Evolution and Nonlinear Effect

✍ Scribed by Masumi Sato

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1973
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 901 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0005-8025
• DOI: 10.1002/ctpp.19730130103

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Evolution from the linear growth to the nonlinearly saturated state of ionization waves (moving striations) is investigated from a viewpoint of an instability which appears in a plasma. The experiments were performed observing backward waves excited below the upper critical current I~c~ in xenon, argon, and argon‐mercury gases at pressures of the order of Torr. It is found that (1) the behavior of the evolution obeys the Landau amplitude equation; (2) the saturated amplitude does not depend on an initial value, but only on plasma parameters; (3) the linear growth and squared saturation level are proportional to the excess over I~c~, and when frequency‐controlled, they have a parabolic dependence on the frequency; and (4) nonuniform axial changes in the dc state due to the nonlinear effects appear in a form of enhanced ionization in the plasma where the electron temperature and density are increased. The way of these behavior can be applied to a large number of spatially or temporally unstable modes.