Cumulative effect of the Weibel-type instabilities in symmetric counterstreaming plasmas with kappa anisotropies

Counterstreaming plasma structures are ubiquitous in laboratory experiments and astrophysical systems, and they are investigated either to prevent unstable modes arising in beam-plasma experiments or to prove the existence of large scale magnetic fields in astrophysical objects. Filamentation instability arises in a counterstreaming plasma and is responsible for the magnetization of the plasma. A filamentationally unstable mode is described by assuming two symmetric counterstreaming plasmas, each with an isotropic Lorentzian (kappa) distribution. In this case, the filamentation instability growth rate can reach a maximum value markedly larger than that for a plasma with a Maxwellian distribution function. This behavior is opposite to what was observed for the Weibel instability growth rate in a bi-kappa plasma, which is always smaller than that obtained for a bi-Maxwellian plasma. The approach is further generalized for a counterstreaming plasma with a bi-kappa temperature anisotropy. In this case, the filamentation instability growth rate is enhanced by the Weibel effect when the plasma is hotter in the streaming direction, and the growth rate becomes even larger. These effects significantly improve the efficiency of the magnetic field generation, and provide further support for the potential role of the Weibel-type instabilities in the fast magnetization scenarios. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.