Kinetic and Two-Fluid Simulations of the Buneman Instability

The Buneman instability develops in current carrying plasmas and is observed in laboratory and space plasmas. Relative drifts between electrons and ions result in mode growth where the growth rate varies with wavenumber and phase-space turbulence is produced. This work studies instability growth rates for currents streaming across a magnetic field. We compare growth rates produced from kinetic Vlasov-Poisson simulations, two-fluid simulations, and the respective fluid linear dispersion relation. Additional cases analyzed include the variation of growth rate with mass ratio and wavenumber.