Stability properties of a relativistic electron beam in a collisional annular plasma channel

The stability properties of an intense relativistic electron beam propagating through a resistive, dense and collisional background plasma are investigated within the framework of the fluid Maxwell equations. It is assumed that the plasma channel has its number density peaked annually near radius R/sub p/ which is larger compared to the beam radius R/sub b/. Furthermore, the plasma with possible condition n/sub p/>>n/sub b/ is fully ionized and highly collisional, where n/sub p/ and n/sub b/ are the densities of the electrons in the plasma and in the beam, respectively. The beam is fully charge neutralized by the background ions but only partly current neutralized. In the absence of a weak magnetic field which is much smaller than the self-field of the current, the assumption of ω/sub pe/<<ω/sub c/ is no longer valid in the calculations where ω/sub pe/ and ω/sub c/ are the beam electron plasma and cyclotron frequencies, respectively. The relativistic equations of two-fluid hydrodynamics of a cold plasma is used to describe the interaction between the beam electrons and plasma electrons in this relativistic beam-plasma system