A Numerical Fluid Analysis for Early Nonlinear Mode Evolution of Fast Electron Beams in Dense Plasmas

Nonlinear mode evolution for relativistic electrons in dense plasmas is analyzed in a three-dimensional fluid approach. Similar to the results previously obtained in particle-in-cell simulations, it is found that oblique modes dominate two-stream and filamentation modes in the linear stage. On the other hand a power spectrum analysis shows the nonlinear development of the high wavenumber modes.