Slowdown of interpenetration of two counterpropagating plasma slab due to collective effects

Abstract

The nonlinear evolution of electromagnetic instabilities driven by the interpenetration of two $e^-\,e^+$ plasma clouds is explored using {\it ab initio} kinetic plasma simulations. We show that the plasma clouds slow down due to both oblique and Weibel generated electromagnetic fields, which deflect the particle trajectories, transferring bulk forward momentum into transverse momentum and thermal velocity spread. This process causes the flow velocity $v_{inst}$ to decrease approximately by a factor of $\sqrt{1/3}$ in a time interval $\Delta t_{\alpha B} \omega_p \sim c/(v_{fl}\sqrt{\alpha_B})$, where $\alpha_B$ is the magnetic equipartition parameter determined by the non-linear saturation of the instabilities, $v_{fl}$ is the initial flow speed, and $\omega_p$ is the plasma frequency. For the $\alpha_B$ measured in our simulations, $\Delta t_{\alpha B}$ is close to $10 \times$ the instability growth time. We show that as long as the plasma slab length $L > v_{fl} \Delta t_{\alpha B}$, the plasma flow is expected to slow down by a factor close to $1/\sqrt{3}$.