TY  - JOUR
AU  - Steinbusch, Benedikt
AU  - Gibbon, Paul
AU  - Sydora, Richard D.
TI  - The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability of boundary-layer plasmas in the kinetic regime
JO  - Physics of plasmas
VL  - 23
IS  - 5
SN  - 1089-7674
CY  - [S.l.]
PB  - American Institute of Physics
M1  - FZJ-2016-02688
SP  - 052119
PY  - 2016
AB  - The dynamics of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability are investigated in the kinetic, high-frequency regime with a novel, two-dimensional, mesh-free tree code. In contrast to earlier studies which focused on specially prepared equilibrium configurations in order to compare with fluid theory, a more naturally occurring plasma-vacuum boundary layer is considered here with relevance to both space plasma and linear plasma devices. Quantitative comparisons of the linear phase are made between the fluid and kinetic models. After establishing the validity of this technique via comparison to linear theory and conventional particle-in-cell simulation for classical benchmark problems, a quantitative analysis of the more complex magnetized plasma-vacuum layer is presented and discussed. It is found that in this scenario, the finite Larmor orbits of the ions result in significant departures from the effective shear velocity and width underlying the instability growth, leading to generally slower development and stronger nonlinear coupling between fast growing short-wavelength modes and longer wavelengths.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000378427900024
DO  - DOI:10.1063/1.4952638
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/809761
ER  -