Stabilization of the filamentation instability and the anisotropy of the background plasma

The interaction of a relativistic electron beam with an anisotropic Maxwellian plasma is investigated, with a focus on the stabilization condition for the filamentation instability. It is found that this condition is very sensitive to the anisotropy degree of the background plasma so that the investigation of the beam instability may not be easily decoupled from the state of the background plasma in typical fusion conditions. Furthermore, regardless of the plasma isotropy, filamentation can no longer be suppressed when the beam density exceeds a threshold value that is determined. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.