Simulation of Counterstreaming Plasmas with Application to Collisionless Electrostatic Shocks

Abstract

A one-dimensional sheet-charge model is used to simulate homogeneous conterstreaming plasmas with no magnetic field. We demonstrate that the only electrostatic instability capable of dissipating a substantial fraction of the relative ion-drift energy and thus generating a turbulent, collisionless shock is the ion-ion two-stream instability. Furthermore, it is shown that such a shock cannot occur at high Mach numbers.