Nonlinear growth of electron holes in cross-field wakes

Cross-field plasma flow past an obstacle is key to the physics underlying Mach-probes, space-craft charging, and the wakes of non-magnetic bodies: the solar-wind wake of the moon is a typical example. We report associated new nonlinear instability mechanisms. Ions are accelerated along the $B$-field into the wake, forming two beams, but they are not initially unstable to ion two-stream instabilities. Electron Langmuir waves become unstable much earlier because of an electron velocity-distribution distortion called the ``dimple''. The magnetic field, perpendicular to the flow, defines the 1-D direction of particle dynamics. In high-fidelity PIC simulations at realistic mass ratio, small electron holes --- non-linearly self-binding electron density deficits --- are spawned by the dimple in $f_e(v)$ near the phase-space separatrix. Most holes accelerate rapidly out of the wake, along $B$. However, some remain at very low speed, and grow until they are large enough to disrupt the two ion-streams, well before the ions are themselves linearly unstable. This non-linear hole growth is caused by the same mechanism that causes the dimple: cross-field drift from a lower to a higher density. Related mechanisms cause plasma near magnetized Langmuir probes to be unsteady.