A possible interpretation of the zebra pattern in solar radiation

The nature of the zebra pattern in continual type-IV solar radio bursts is discussed. It is shown that, when a weakly relativistic monoenergetic proton beam propagates in a highly nonisothermal plasma, the energy of the slow beam mode can be negative and explosive instability can develop due to the interaction of the slow and fast beam modes with ion sound. Due to weak spatial dispersion, ion sound generation is accompanied by cascade merging, which leads to stabilization of explosive instability. The zebra pattern forms due to the scattering of fast protons by ion sound harmonics. The efficiency of the new mechanism is compared with that of previously discussed mechanisms.