RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR INSTABILITY IN A PLANAR SLAB OF ELECTRON-PLASMA

The stability of a planar slab of electron plasma confined in the tran sverse direction by a longitudinal magnetic field is investigated nume rically. The plasma slab can be created by using either a nonequipoten tial of equipotential cathode that. in the general case, makes it nece ssary to take into account the nonuniformity of the longitudinal and t ransverse electron velocities. If the magnitude and direction of the m agnetic field at the cathode are chosen properly, the plasma frequency can be higher than the cyclotron frequency. It is shown that, in this cast, an instability inevitably arises in the system; this instabilit y leads to the growth of disturbances that are similar to Taylor's vor tex cells. This fact indicates a similarity between this instability a nd the Rayleigh-Taylor instability, which is known from conventional h ydrodynamics.