Beam-Plasma Instability and Fast Particles: the Lynden-Bell Approach

Abstract: The beam-plasma instability, i.e. the response of the plasma bulk to the injection of supra thermal charged-particle beams, results to be appropriately characterized by a long-range interaction system. This physical system hosts a number of very interesting phenomena and, in particular, the emergence of long-lived quasi-stationary states. We characterize the self-consistent distribution functions of such out-of-equilibrium states by means of the Lynden-Bell's theory. The prediction of this theory, based on the statistical mechanics of the Vlasov equation, are checked against the outcomes of numerical simulations of the discrete system. Moreover, a phenomenological study of the effective resonance band for the system response is also addressed. A threshold value has been found in the initial spread of beam-particle momenta. This threshold allows to discriminate between the resonant and non-resonant regimes. The analysis of the thermalization of a few percents of the beam population characterized by large initial momenta (with respect to the main part of the beam itself) is also performed and it confirms and deepens the understanding of the physical meaning of the mentioned threshold.