Strong evidence for stochastic growth of Langmuir-like waves in Earth's foreshock

Bursty Langmuir-Like waves driven by electron beams in Earth's foreshock ha ve properties which are inconsistent with the standard plasma physics parad igm of uniform exponential growth saturated by nonlinear processes. Here it is demonstrated for a specific period that stochastic growth theory (SGT) quantitatively describes these waves throughout a large fraction of the for eshock. The statistical wave properties are inconsistent with nonlinear pro cesses or self-organized criticality being important. SGT's success in expl aining the foreshock waves and type III solar bursts suggests that SGT is w idely applicable to wave growth in space, astrophysical, and laboratory pla smas. [S0031-9007(99)08903-6].