Kinetic theory of ion acoustic instability in a collisional plasma

In this paper we present a comprehensive kinetic theory of current driven ionacoustic instability using a particle, momentum and energy conserving BGK collision model as suggested by Greene. We take into account, electron-electron, electron-ion, ion-ion and ion-electron collisions in our analysis. The theory gives a smooth connection between various limits of collisional parameter kl as it changes from <<1 to>> 1. Apart from recovering all the known analytical limits our theory predicts the dependence of absorption/growth rate on electron-ion temperature ratio in the weak collision limit i.e. (mi/me)1/2>kl>1. (author)