Observation has clearly shown that natural space plasmas generally possess a pronounced non-Maxwellian high-energy tail distribution that can be well modeled by a kappa distribution. In this study we investigate the p...Observation has clearly shown that natural space plasmas generally possess a pronounced non-Maxwellian high-energy tail distribution that can be well modeled by a kappa distribution. In this study we investigate the proton cyclotron wave instability driven by the temperature anisotropy （T⊥/TH 〉1） of suprathermal protons modeled with a typical kappa distribution in the magnetosheath. It is found that as in the case for a regular bi-Maxwellian, the supratherreal proton temperature anisotropy is subject to the threshold condition of this proton cyclotron instability and the instability threshold condition satisfies a general form T⊥/T｜｜ - 1 = S/β｜｜^α, with a very narrow range of the fitting parameters： 0.40 ≤ α ≤ 0.45, and a relatively sensitive variation 0.27 ≤ S ≤ 0.65, over 0.01 ≤β｜｜ 〈 10. Furthermore, the difference in threshold conditions between the kappa distribution and the bi-Maxwellian distribution is found to be small for a relatively strong growth but becomes relatively obvious for a weak wave growth. The results may provide a deeper insight into the physics of this instability threshold for the proton cyclotron waves.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China （Nos. 40474064, 40404012） the Scientific Research Foundation for R0CS, SEM+1 种基金 the Scientific Research Fund of Hunan Provincial Science and Technology Department grant 05FJ3045 the Visiting Scholar Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, Chinese Academy of Sciences
文摘Observation has clearly shown that natural space plasmas generally possess a pronounced non-Maxwellian high-energy tail distribution that can be well modeled by a kappa distribution. In this study we investigate the proton cyclotron wave instability driven by the temperature anisotropy （T⊥/TH 〉1） of suprathermal protons modeled with a typical kappa distribution in the magnetosheath. It is found that as in the case for a regular bi-Maxwellian, the supratherreal proton temperature anisotropy is subject to the threshold condition of this proton cyclotron instability and the instability threshold condition satisfies a general form T⊥/T｜｜ - 1 = S/β｜｜^α, with a very narrow range of the fitting parameters： 0.40 ≤ α ≤ 0.45, and a relatively sensitive variation 0.27 ≤ S ≤ 0.65, over 0.01 ≤β｜｜ 〈 10. Furthermore, the difference in threshold conditions between the kappa distribution and the bi-Maxwellian distribution is found to be small for a relatively strong growth but becomes relatively obvious for a weak wave growth. The results may provide a deeper insight into the physics of this instability threshold for the proton cyclotron waves.
