Electrostatic ion-cyclotron instabilities modified by the parallel and perpendicular plasma flow velocity shears

Abstract

The external and independent control of plasma flow velocity shears parallel and perpendicular to magnetic field lines is realized using segmented collisionless-plasma sources. Electrostatic ion-cyclotron instabilities are observed to be suppressed by the perpendicular flow velocity shears, the suppression physics of which is found to be distinguished into two aspects. On the other hand, the parallel flow velocity shears are demonstrated to destabilize the ion-cyclotron instabilities depending on the sign of the parallel shear in the absence of field-aligned electron drift flow.