SPATIOTEMPORAL STRUCTURES IN COLLISIONLESS ELECTROSTATIC PLASMAS

The realm of nonlinear dynamical processes occurring in driven, collisionless electrostatic plasmas is considered by employing and analyzing a 1D particle simulation for two specific examples, the symmetric two-stream instability and the plasma diode. Going beyond the hydrodynamic macroscopic regime, the evolution reveals a rich world of non-dissipative spatio-temporal structures in phase space in which multistreaming, particle reflexion, vortex- and sheath formation as well as bunching processes stipulate a complex interaction, part of which can be described analytically.