ELECTROMAGNETIC NOISE IN CURRENT SHEET IN GEOMAGNETIC TAIL

The first point to be made here is that noise is not absolutely necessary for the existence of an electric field in the current sheet, although in practise noise is almost certainly important. Speiser's trajectory calculations neglecting noise lead to an unfamiliar kind of distribution function, which is clearly unstable in such a way as to generate longitudinal waves and possibly other waves. The stability criterion is, however, strongly affected by radiation out of the sides of the sheet. The complete problem is discussed in a general way, and it is pointed out that, depending on the character of the noise, the distribution function may or may not be radically altered by the noise. Finally the problem is broken down into several parts. © 1969.