An electrostatic parabolic density drift instability

The Vlasov theory for an electrostatic instability driven by a parabolic density gradient is considered. The magnetic field is taken as uniform, and the local approximation is used. The instability grows only for a sufficiently large, positive second derivative of the density. The parametric dependences of the linear growth rate are reported, as well as weakly nonlinear calculations on wave‐particle transport due to this instability.