Collisionless plasma shocks in striated electron temperatures.

ABSTRACT

The existence of low frequency waveguide modes of ion acoustic waves is demonstrated in magnetized plasmas for electron temperatures striated along the magnetic field lines. At higher frequencies, in a band between the ion cyclotron and the ion plasma frequency, radiative modes develop and propagate obliquely to the field away from the striation. Arguments for the subsequent formation and propagation of electrostatic shock are presented and demonstrated numerically. For such plasma conditions, the dissipation mechanism is the "leakage" of the harmonics generated by the wave steepening.