Langmuir waves that generate type III radio bursts are excited by high-energy electron beams streaming out from the corona through interplanetary space. Despite a smooth temporal distribution of electrons, the Langmuir waves are measured to occur in discrete clumps, commonly attributed to the turbulent nature of the solar wind electron density (e.g. Smith and Sime 1979, Melrose et al 1986). But how do fluctuations in the background plasma shape the […]

It was recently reported that a significant part of the Langmuir waveforms observed by the STEREO satellite (Graham and Cairns, 2013) during type III solar radio bursts are likely consistent with the occurrence of electrostatic decay instabilities, when a Langmuir wave \(\mathcal{L}\) resonantly interacts with another Langmuir wave \(\mathcal{L}^{\prime}\) and an ion sound wave \(\mathcal{S}^{\prime}\) through the decay channel \(\mathcal{L} \rightarrow\mathcal{L}^{\prime}+\mathcal{S}^{\prime}\). Usually such wave-wave interactions occur in regions of the […]