We investigate the growth rate of field-aligned whistler-mode waves in space plasmas by using a fully relativistic treatment, including a recently developed relativistic kappa-loss-cone (KLC) distribution and a fully relativistic growth rate formula. Numerical calculations are carried out for a direct comparison between the new KLC distribution and the current kappa distribution, respectively. It is found that, in the lower wave frequency (e.g. ω≲0.1Ωe), the wave growth by the KLC distribution is generally higher than that by the kappa distribution, due to a larger fractional ...
