Drift instabilities in thin current sheets using a two-fluid model with pressure tensor effects

Abstract

The integration of kinetic effects in fluid models is important for global simulations of the Earth's magnetosphere. We use a two-fluid ten moment model, which includes the pressure tensor and has been used to study reconnection, to study the drift kink and lower hybrid drift instabilities. Using a nonlocal linear eigenmode analysis, we find that for the kink mode, the ten moment model shows good agreement with kinetic calculations with the same closure model used in reconnection simulations, while the electromagnetic and electrostatic lower hybrid instabilities require modeling the effects of the ion resonance using a Landau fluid closure. Comparisons with kinetic simulations and the implications of the results for global magnetospheric simulations are discussed.