The first movie comes from a particle-ion, fluid-electron computer simulation we conducted, which shows what we believe to be the full nonlinear evolution of this instability in the two dimensions perpendicular to the Earth's magnetic field. The wavefronts travel in a roughly horizontal direction, but are raggedy, due to the presence of obliquely upward and downward propagating components, which accompany the nonlinear stage of this instability. There also strong upward and downward secondary waves present. These are visible in the movie and features which are moving upward and downward on the primary, horizontally traveling wavefronts.

A talk given on the Farley-Buneman instability gives some additional details. A full description of the research conducted may be found in the our recent papers Oppenheim, et al. 1995 and 1996, and Oppenheim and Otani, 1996.

On to the next Farley-Buneman movie.