Study of Kinetic Effects Arising in Simulations of Farley-Buneman Instability

The Farley-Buneman instability, which has been observed in the E region of the Earth's ionosphere, is studied using fluid equations for electrons, a four-dimensional (in coordinate-velocity space) kinetic equation for ions, and Poisson's equation. Numerical simulations with allowance for Landau damping show that the Farley-Buneman instability results in anisotropy of the ion velocity distribution function.