Excitation of chorus-like waves by temperature anisotropy in dipole research experiment (DREX): A numerical study

Due to their significant roles in the radiation belts dynamics, chorus waves are widely investigated in observations, experiments, and simulations. In this paper, numerical studies for the generation of chorus-like waves in a launching device, dipole research experiment (DREX), are carried out by a hybrid code. The DREX plasma is generated by electron cyclotron resonance (ECR), which leads to an intrinsic temperature anisotropy of energetic electrons. Thus the whistler instability can be excited in the device. We then investigate the effects of three parameters, i.e., the cold plasma density n_c, the hot plasma density n_h, and the parallel thermal velocity of energetic electrons, on the generation of chorus-like waves under the DREX design parameters. It is obtained that a larger temperature anisotropy is needed to excite chorus-like waves with a high n_c with other parameters fixed. Then we fix the plasma density and parallel thermal velocity, while varying the hot plasma density. It is found that with the increase of n_h, the spectrum of the generated waves changes from no chorus elements, to that with several chorus elements, and then further to broad-band hiss-like waves. Besides, different structures of chorus-like waves, such as rising-tone and/or falling-tone structures, can be generated at different parallel thermal velocities in the DREX parameter range.