Spectra of developed Langmuir turbulence in a nonisothermal magnetized plasma

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Abstract
Strong Langmuir turbulence driven by a relativistic electron beam has been investigated by the laser scattering technique. The special features of the experiments are as follows: (i) in the regime under study, Langmuir turbulence is well developed, and the temporal and spatial scales of the turbulent region far exceed those of a single caviton; (ii) the dispersion of the electron plasma waves is governed by the magnetic field, although ωpe≫ωBe; and (iii) the temperature of plasma electrons is much higher than that of ions, i.e., the damping of ion‐acoustic waves is small. k‐Spectra of electron plasma waves are measured in a broad spectral region by means of CO2‐laser scattering. Criterion of modulational instability of observed spectra is estimated. The role of conversion and scattering of Langmuir waves by ion‐acoustic waves in nonlinear energy transfer is discussed.