Phase speed saturation of Farley-Buneman waves due to stochastic, self-induced fluctuations in the background flow

Abstract

The phase speed saturation of Farley–Buneman waves is studied as an interaction with the random turbulent fluctuations in the background. We used the formalism of stochastic differential equations to model the complex interactions with a linearized system plus a stochastic term. Applying an averaging technique, we can obtain an augmented linear system that depends on the random behavior of the waves. The results show that following this approach we can obtain phase velocities that saturate close to the ion acoustic speed (Cs). This approach seems promising for the study of the influence of plasma turbulence generated by different kinds of instabilities on the mean state of the ionosphere.