Transverse-current plasma instability

The instability of a low-pressure plasma in which the current flows in a direction normal to the magnetic field is studied analytically. It is shown that in such a plasma, ion-acoustic oscillations have a high excitation threshold, and that in a plasma with a strong magnetic field, such oscillations will not occur if the relative electron and ion velocity is lower than the thermal velocity of the electrons. The excitation of electron cyclotron oscillations under conditions where the relative electron and ion velocity is on the order of the thermal electron velocity is examined, along with the excitation of Bunemann instability in the case where the relative electron and ion velocity is much higher than the thermal electron velocity.