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Updated: May 26, 2026

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
Modified temperature-anisotropy instability thresholds in the solar wind
R Schlickeiser1, M J Michno, D Ibscher
1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Lehrstuhl IV: Weltraum- und Astrophysik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany.
Abstract:
The proton and electron temperature anisotropies in the solar wind are constrained by the instability thresholds for temperature-anisotropy-driven kinetic plasma instabilities. The modifications to the marginal instability conditions from accounting for the influence of damping connected with the collisional effects in the solar wind plasma are calculated for right- and left-handed polarized parallel propagating Alfvén waves and mirror and firehose fluctuations. These modifications provide tighter threshold constraints compared to the marginal thresholds but do not fully explain the observations at small values of the parallel plasma beta.
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