Weibel instability

The Weibel instability is a plasma instability present in homogeneous or nearly-homogeneous electromagnetic plasmas plasmas which possess an anisotropy in momentum (velocity) space. In the linear limit the instability causes exponential growth of electromagnetic fields in the plasma which help to restore momentum space isotropy. In the limit of an extremely anisotropic distribution the Weibel instability is related to 1 or 2 dimensional stream instabilities.

References

• E.S. Weibel, Phys. Rev. Lett. 2, 83 (1959); http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v2/i3/p83_1

See also

• Chromo-Weibel Instability