Mathematical Research Letters

Volume 8 (2001)

Number 4

Instability of periodic BGK waves

Pages: 521 – 534

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4310/MRL.2001.v8.n4.a11

Author

Zhiwu Lin (Brown University)

Abstract

We investigate the stability of periodic Bernstein-Greene-Kruskal (BGK) waves. It is proved that any such wave is linearly unstable under some perturbation of twice the period. A new method is developed to find a growing mode.

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Published 1 January 2001