QUASI-LINEAR EVOLUTION OF ALFVEN-ION-CYCLOTRON AND MIRROR INSTABILITIES DRIVEN BY ION TEMPERATURE ANISOTROPY

In this paper the simultaneous nonlinear evolution of the Alfven-ion-cyclotron and mirror instabilities driven by an anisotropic ion distribution function are studied. The ions are modeled by a bi-Maxwellian distribution function. For the sake of generality, two ion components are considered; the initially isotropic component and a population possessing a large temperature anisotropy with perpendicular temperature greater than parallel temperature. Here, perpendicular and parallel are defined with respect to the ambient magnetic field. The analysis is based on quasilinear kinetic theory. It is shown that initially, the mirror mode grows at a slightly faster rate when compared with the ion-cyclotron mode, but the subsequent evolution shows that the ion-cyclotron mode saturates at a much larger intensity. Simultaneously, large perpendicular temperature associated with the anisotropic ions is substantially reduced as the free energy is taken away by the unstable waves, while the parallel temperature increases so as to reduce the anisotropy. The initially isotropic ions, on the other hand, are also heated in the direction perpendicular to the ambient magnetic field vector.