Propagation of a nonrelativistic electron beam in a plasma in a magnetic field

Propagation of a nonrelativistic electron beam in a plasma in a strong magnetic field has been studied using electrostatic one-dimensional particle simulation models. Electron beams of finite pulse length and of continuous injection are followed in time to study the effects of beam-plasma interaction on the beam propagation. For the case of pulsed beam propagation, it is found that the beam distribution rapidly spreads in velocity space generating a plateaulike distribution with a high energy tail extending beyond the initial beam velocity