Surface waves at the boundaries of relativistic plasma streams

A study is made of stable and unstable electromagnetic surface waves at the boundaries of the plane and cylindrical relativistic plasma streams in the frequency range corresponding to positive values of the plasma permittivity. It is demonstrated that there are critical parameters for the transition from slow to fast waves, namely, the angle between the velocity and the wave vector in plane geometry and the smallest mode number in cylindrical geometry. It is shown that the critical parameter for the onset of the firehose instability of an electron stream is the transverse size of the stream. Higher firehose modes of the stream are shown to be suppressed by applying a strong longitudinal magnetic field.