Abstract
Waves and instabilities have very often been an object of fascination since the introduction of non-Maxwellian features in space plasmas. To date, the dispersion relation, including real frequency, damping, and growth rates of magnetosonic waves has been studied in many different types of non-Maxwellian distributions. However, these characteristics have been overlooked in the temperature bi-anisotropic Cairns distribution, characterized by the free parameter Lambda. By employing the linearized Vlasov-Maxwell system in homogeneous plasma, the dispersion relation is analytically solved. It is found that the non-Maxwellian features, Lambda not equal 0 along with electron temperature anisotropy, notably modify the real frequency, damping, and growth rates-both in the hydrodynamic as well as in the kinetic regimes. Interestingly, the growth rate in the kinetic regime is entirely due to the correlation of K with the electron temperature anisotropy which is otherwise absent in the Maxwellian distribution. Due to their relevance, the results are applicable to solar wind plasma. Published by AIP Publishing.