Modulational instabilities in relativistic pair plasmas

Abstract

We study the modulational instability of an intense photon beam in a relativistic pair plasma. We use the wave-kinetic description of the photon field and relativistic fluid equations for electrons and positrons. This allows us to consider the influence of the photon spectral distribution and photon recoil effects on the instability threshold and growth rates. The case of very low frequencies modulations, well below plasma frequency, is compared to that of high-frequency modulations corresponding to the plasmon decay instability.