AMPLIFICATION OF COLLECTIVE MAGNETIC FLUCTUATIONS IN MAGNETIZED BI-MAXWELLIAN PLASMAS FOR PARALLEL WAVE VECTORS. I. ELECTRON–PROTON PLASMA

Abstract

The general electromagnetic fluctuation theory is a powerful tool to analyze the magnetic fluctuation spectrum of a plasma. Recent works utilizing this theory for a magnetized non-relativistic isotropic Maxwellian electron–proton plasma have demonstrated that the equilibrium ratio of can be as high as 10 −12 . This value results from the balance between spontaneous emission of fluctuations and their damping, and it is considerably smaller than the observed value in the solar wind at 1 au, where . In the present manuscript, we consider an anisotropic bi-Maxwellian distribution function to investigate the effect of plasma instabilities on the magnetic field fluctuations. We demonstrate that these instabilities strongly amplify the magnetic field fluctuations and provide a sufficient mechanism to explain the observed value of in the solar wind at 1 au.