Hybrid simulation of Alfvén/ion cyclotron instability of a one-dimensional electromagnetic plasma

Most of the matter in the universe is in plasma state, however, its study through experimentation is not feasible due to the number of particles that are present in a system and that most of the plasma in universe is in outer space. Owing to this, the author explains how to simulate plasma using Hybrid Method, which means that electrons are going to be model as a mass-less fluid and ions as particles, to show a way to study this state of matter without interacting with it. This approach arose in order to model special plasmas, where ions and their kinetic effects dominate the phenomena of the system, while the effects of electrons weakly influence the motion of the system. With the aim of testing the functionality of the method, a one-dimensional electromagnetic simulation of Alfvén/ion-cyclotron waves was performed where it is shown how the dispersion relation and kinetic energy change with varying thermal velocity.