Current Enhancement for Hose-Unstable Electron Beams

摘要

An electron beam injected into a conducting medium produces inductive electric fields. These fields drive conduction currents which, for stable beams, oppose the beam current and thereby reduce the total (net) current. For unstable beams which undergo large transverse displacements, the inductive field can reverse direction and drive conduction current parallel to the beam current. An analytic and numerical treatment of the latter effect is presented to explain current enhancement as observed for electron beams propagating in gases at pressures above 10 torr. Keywords: Electron beams; Current enhancement; Charged particle beam; Nonlinear hose instability; Circuit analysis; Resistive instabilities.