Electromagnetic Instability in Counterstreaming Collisional Plasmas in a Magnetic Field

The stability of low frequency electromagnetic waves is studied for collisional, counterstreaming plasmas situated in a steady magnetic field. Based on the cold fluid equations, it is found that obliquely propagating waves are unstable when the parallel component of the phase velocity is smaller than the electron streaming velocity. The frequency of the instability is of the order of but always smaller than the ion cyclotron frequency. The growth rate is proportional to the electron-ion collisional frequency.