Current driven ion electrostatic waves in a magnetized collisional plasma

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Abstract
The stability of ion electrostatic waves propagating at arbitrary angles with respect to a uniform, static magnetic field is studied in a collisional, fully ionized plasma carrying a field-aligned current. It is shown that for arbitrary values of the ratio of ion-cyclotron frequency omega ci to ion-acoustic wave frequency omega a, instability may result from normally dissipative terms such as electron thermal conductivity and resistivity. Growth rate formulas are derived using fluid equations and reduced to simple form for omega ci/ omega a>>1 and omega ci/ omega a<<1.