Modulation instability of an electromagnetic wave interacting with a counterpropagating electron beam under condition of cyclotron resonance absorption.

Abstract

In this paper, transmission of a monochromatic wave through a counterpropagating electron beam under the condition of cyclotron resonance absorption is studied by theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. Conditions of the modulation instability (MI) are analyzed. The MI strongly affects the regimes of transmission. We also derive explicit periodic stationary solutions expressed in terms of elliptic Jacobi functions, as well as bright- and dark-soliton solutions. Analysis of these solutions allows obtaining threshold values of the driving power and frequency for the different regimes of transmission, such as cyclotron absorption, multifrequency self-modulation oscillations, and stationary single-frequency propagation. The theoretical predictions are verified by numerical simulation. In this way, we obtain the conditions at which a continuous-wave driving signal disintegrates into a close-to-periodic train of microwave soliton pulses.