Amplification of collective magnetic fluctuations in magnetized bi-maxwellian plasmas for parallel wave vectors. I. Electron-proton plasma
The general electromagnetic fluctuation theory is a powerful tool to analyze the magnetic fluctuation spectrum of a plasma. Recent works utilizing this theory for a magnetized non-relativistic isotropic Maxwellian electron–proton plasma have demonstrated that the equilibrium ratio of |δB|/B{sub 0} can be as high as 10{sup −12}. This value results from the balance between spontaneous emission of fluctuations and their damping, and it is considerably smaller than the observed value |δB|/B{sub 0} in the solar wind at 1 au, where 10{sup −3}≲|δB|/B{sub 0}≲10{sup −1}. In the present manuscript, we consider an anisotropic bi-Maxwellian distribution function to investigate the effect of plasma instabilities on the magnetic field fluctuations. We demonstrate that these instabilities strongly amplify the magnetic field fluctuations and provide a sufficient mechanism to explain the observed value of |δB|/B{sub 0} in the solar wind at 1 au.