Self-focusing instability in ionospheric plasma with thermal conduction

In this communication, an expression for the growth rate of self-focusing instability in the ionospheric plasma has been derived after taking finite thermal conduction into account. The instability arises on account of the depletion of electrons from regions where the irradiance of the perturbation is large. In contrast to earlier work, an appropriate energy balance equation for electrons and ions and the proper dependence of thermal conductivity on electron temperature have been used. The dependence of the growth rate of the filamentation instability on the background irradiation, thermal conductivity, and the wave number of transverse perturbation has been investigated. The mid-latitude daytime ionospheric model of Gurevich has been used for numerical computations, corresponding to a height of 200 km. The gradient of irradiance perturbations is assumed to be along the magnetic field of the Earth. The numerical results have been illustrated graphically and discussed