Whistler modulational instability.

Derivation of the modulational instability characteristics of whistlers in cold and hot plasmas. The cold-plasma analysis considers both ion motion and relativistic effects; the unstable band, with a growth rate proportional to (B/B sub zero)squared, is contiguous to Omega sub e/4 and, depending on the plasma density, lies above or below that frequency (Omega sub e is the electron cyclotron frequency of the static magnetic field; B and B sub zero are the whistler and static magnetic fields). In hot plasmas, stability occurs between Omega sub e/4 and Omega prime (less than Omega sub e), with Omega prime depending mainly on the mean energy and anisotropy of the energetic electron population; the complementary unstable band has a growth rate proportional to (B/B sub zero) to the 1/2 power. The relevance of the instability to whistlers in the magnetosphere is discussed.