Abstract
We present the first observation of instability in weakly magnetized, pressure dominated plasma Couette flow firmly in the Hall regime. Strong Hall currents couple to a low frequency electromagnetic mode that is driven by high- () pressure profiles. Spectroscopic measurements show heating (factor of 3) of the cold, unmagnetized ions via a resonant Landau damping process. A linear theory of this instability is derived that predicts positive growth rates at finite and shows the stabilizing effect of very large , in line with observations.
- Received 4 September 2020
- Revised 10 March 2021
- Accepted 5 April 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.185002
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