Kinetic Theory of Inhomogeneous Plasmas Situated in RE Fields

The stability effect that an RF electric field imposes on drift instabilities in a magnetized plasma, inhomogeneous in density and temperature, is investigated in the kinetic approximation, taking account of the finite ion Larmor radii. Stabilization of drift instabilities is examined in three frequency ranges:?/k? < ?th,i, ?th,i < ?/k? < ?th,e, and ?/k? > ?th,e, where k? is the component of the wave vector parallel to the applied dc magnetic field, and ?th, e and ?th, i are the electron and ion thermal speeds, respectively. It is found that stabilization is most effective for the medium phase-velocity range, where the drift instability, driven by streaming electrons, is strongest and sensitive to the ratio Ln/LT, where Ln and LT are the density and temperature gradient scale lengths, respectively.     

Resonant interaction of an electromagnetic wave with an inhomogeneous plasma slab

Resonant interaction at oblique incidence of an electromagnetic wave on an inhomogeneous plasma slab is studied. The time evolution of this interaction is solved numerically from two-fluid equations, adiabatic equation for electron pressure and from Maxwell equations. It is shown that the electromagnetic energy of an incident wave is transformed both into the heat energy and into the energy of plasma oscillations in the direction of density gradient. The distribution of the transformed energy between the heat energy and the energy of plasma oscillations is strongly dependent on the plasma temperature. The ratio of heat energy to the energy of plasma oscillations is growing with growing temperature. The plasma oscillations are generated by magnetic induction of the penetrating wave. In a cold plasma they are generated especially in the overdense region and their frequency is equal to local plasma frequency. The electric field in the direction of plasma gradient has a form of a wave packet whose envelope reaches a maximum at resonance. The characteristic wavelength in the wave packet decreases and the amplitude of the packet increases with the time.     

Electric field induced nuclear spin resonance mediated by oscillating electron spin domains in GaAs-based semiconductors

We demonstrate an alternative nuclear spin resonance using a radio frequency (rf) electric field [nuclear electric resonance (NER)] instead of a magnetic field. The NER is based on the electronic control of electron spins forming a domain structure. The rf electric field applied to a gate excites spatial oscillations of the domain walls and thus temporal oscillations of the hyperfine field to nuclear spins. The rf power and burst duration dependence of the NER spectrum provides insight into the interplay between nuclear spins and the oscillating domain walls.     

Empirical power law for magnetic turbulence spectra of an anisotropic plasma

Three-dimensional dynamic distributions of oscillations of the magnetic field over wave vectors k have been obtained from the plasma and magnetic measurements on four satellites in the Cluster experiment in a turbulent plasma in the outer Earth’s cusp and near it. The resulting k spectra exhibit strong inhomogeneous anisotropy. The dependences of the energy of magnetic oscillations on the wavenumber have been analyzed for 288 three-dimensional spectra in the wavelength interval covering the magnetohydrodynamic and ion scales. It has been shown that the energy density of magnetic fluctuations per unit volume in the wave vector space that is averaged over the total solid angle decreases in the wavelength interval from ～2000 to ～10 km with an increase in according to a power law with an exponent of α = -5.0 ± 0.3 for any magnitude and character of anisotropy.     

太赫兹波在飞行器等离子体鞘套中的传输特性

针对临近空间飞行器的黑障问题,根据模拟的RAM C-Ⅲ飞行器周围的流场分布结果,计算了等离子体电子密度和碰撞频率,并根据其分布建立了非均匀的等离子体模型。在此基础上,利用散射矩阵方法分析了太赫兹波在等离子体中的传输特性随着等离子体密度、等离子体厚度、等离子体碰撞频率的变化以及外加磁场对传输特性的影响。结果表明,太赫兹波的传输损耗随着等离子体电子密度和等离子体厚度的增加而增加,而碰撞频率的增加会使得透射率先减小后增加。在外加磁场的作用下,左旋太赫兹波的传输特性会得到改善;而对于右旋太赫兹波,磁场的施加会引入吸收峰,并且随着磁感应强度的增加向高频方向移动。     

Effects of relativistic and ponderomotive nonlinearities on the interaction of high-power laser beam with an inhomogeneous warm plasma

The influence of relativistic-ponderomotive nonlinearities and the plasma inhomogeneity on the nonlinear interaction between a high-power laser beam and a warm underdense plasma are studied. It is clear that the relativistic ponderomotive force and the electron temperature modify the electron density distribution and consequently change the dielectric permittivity of the plasma. Therefore, by presenting the modified electron density and the nonlinear dielectric permittivity of the warm plasma, the electromagnetic wave equation for the propagation of intense laser beam through the plasma is derived. This nonlinear equation is numerically solved and the distributions of electromagnetic fields in the plasma, the variations of electron density, and plasma refractive index are investigated for two different background electron density profiles. The results show that the amplitude of the electric field and electron density oscillations gradually increase and decrease, during propagation in the inhomogeneous warm plasma with linear and exponential density profiles, respectively, and the distribution of electron density becomes extremely sharp in the presence of intense laser beam. It is also indicated that the electron temperature and initial electron density have an impact on the propagation of the laser beam in the plasma and change the plasma refractive index and the oscillations' amplitude and frequency. The obtained results indicate the importance of a proper choice of laser and plasma parameters on the electromagnetic field distributions, density steepening, and plasma refractive index variations in the interaction of an intense laser beam with an inhomogeneous warm plasma.     

Measurement of density fluctuations on the JIPP T-IIU tokamak via an HCN laser scattering

Observation of density fluctuations in tokamak plasmas is important to study the plasma confinement and to perform high power heating of the plasma. We observed the density fluctuations by means of an HCN laser scattering method during rf heating in the ion-cyclotron range of frequency on a tokamak plasma.The density fluctuations at the drift wave frequency are not enhanced so much by the heating, but the frequency spectrum is shifted to higher frequency. The increase of the density fluctuation level during the heating has been observed only in low-frequency region owing to MHD activity.     

Instability Caused by an Inhomogeneous Energy Density Distribution as a Possible Source of Electrostatic Broadband Noise

Plasma instability caused by an inhomogeneous energy density distribution is considered. It is shown that this instability can lead to the excitation of electrostatic ion-cyclotron and oblique ion-acoustic waves, generated in the presence of an inhomogeneous transverse electric field and a shear in the parallel drift velocity of the plasma particles. The considered physical mechanisms of the instability generation in plasma can serve as possible sources of broadband electrostatic turbulence in the auroral ionosphere.     

On the nonlinear theory of current instability of short-wave drift oscillations

The paper deals with the studies of current instability in the inhomogeneous plasma resulting in excitation of short-wave drift oscillations with a frequency near the low-hybrid resonance.It is shown that the saturation of such an instability is associated with the spectral pumping of oscillations into the short-wave region that occurs due to the modulation instability; and maximum amplitudes of the electrical fields of oscillations are determined. The effective frequency of electron collisions due to current instability is calculated. It is indicated that the diffusion model of the Parker-Sweet magnetic field reconnection modified taking into account the anomalous resistance mechanism studied here leads to the estimate of the magnetopause width being in satisfactory agreement with the experiment.     

Non‐linear absorption of an intense laser pulse propagating in wiggler‐assisted underdense collisional plasma

In this article, the propagation of an intense laser pulse through underdense collisional plasma in the presence of planar magnetostatic wiggler is studied. It is shown that the electron density distribution, in the presence of planar wiggler with increasing of the normalized plasma length, increases initially and then reaches a peak for different values of wiggler amplitudes. In addition, it is found that the existence of wiggler field leads to an increase in the electron density distribution and subsequently enhancement of electric field. Moreover, it is observed that by increasing the wiggler field, as a result of the increase of the electron density distribution, the dielectric permittivity constant is reduced. It is seen that while wiggler magnetic field was applied appropriately, the total absorption coefficient in the underdense collisional isothermal magnetized plasma improves. In fact, increase of wiggler magnetic field causes the enhancement of the total absorption coefficient of plasma medium.     

Orbital motion of dust particles in an rf magnetron discharge. Ion drag force or neutral atom wind force

Microparticles with sizes up to 130 μm have been confined and the velocity and diameter of particles in a plasma trap of an rf magnetron discharge with an arc magnetic field have been simultaneously measured. The motion of the gas induced by electron and ion cyclotron currents has been numerically simulated using the Navier-Stokes equation. The experimental and numerical results confirm the mechanism of the orbital motion of dust particles in the magnetron discharge plasma that is associated with the orbital motion of the neutral gas accelerated by electron and ion drift flows in crossed electric and magnetic fields.     

Guiding of an electromagnetic pulse in a plasma immersed in combined wiggler and axial magnetic fields

We present a new plasma-based method of guiding an electromagnetic pulse. The scheme consists of an inhomogeneous magnetic field and a uniform density plasma, in contrast to existing schemes that rely on transverse plasma density gradients but need not be magnetized. The refractive index of a magnetized plasma depends on the strength and direction of the magnetic field as well as the plasma density. A guiding channel is formed by using field inhomogeneity to generate the desired transverse profile of the index of refraction. The concept is analyzed with an envelope equation and, for the specific example of a wiggler magnetic field, with a two-dimension particle-in-cell simulation. A simplified model of this scheme as producing a magnetic wall in analogy to metallic waveguides is presented, for which corresponding approximate relations for the guided mode axial wavelength and radius are derived as functions of the plasma and magnetic field parameter. These are seen to be in good agreement with particle-in-cell simulation results. Since the desired inhomogeneity of the refractive index can be made easily when the electromagnetic wave frequency is close to the cyclotron frequency, this guiding scheme is most readily applied in the microwave regime.     

Drift ion acoustic solitons in an inhomogeneous 2-D quantum magnetoplasma

Linear and nonlinear propagation characteristics of quantum drift ion acoustic waves are investigated in an inhomogeneous two-dimensional plasma employing the quantum hydrodynamic (QHD) model. In this regard, the dispersion relation of the drift ion acoustic waves is derived and limiting cases are discussed. In order to study the drift ion acoustic solitons, nonlinear quantum Kadomstev-Petviashvilli (KP) equation in an inhomogeneous quantum plasma is derived using the drift approximation. The solution of quantum KP equation using the tangent hyperbolic (tanh) method is also presented. The variation of the soliton with the quantum Bohm potential, the ratio of drift to soliton velocity in the co-moving frame, , and the increasing magnetic field are also investigated. It is found that the increasing number density decreases the amplitude of the soliton. It is also shown that the fast drift soliton (i.e., v_*>u) decreases whereas the slow drift soliton (i.e., v_*<u) increases the amplitude of the soliton. Finally, it is shown that the increasing magnetic field increases the amplitude of the quantum drift ion acoustic soliton. The stability of the quantum KP equation is also investigated. The relevance of the present investigation in dense astrophysical environments is also pointed out.     

Low-frequency instability of an inhomogeneous weakly ionized plasma in crossed electric and inhomogeneous magnetic fields

The paper discusses the drift dissipative instability that arises in a weakly ionized inhomogeneous plasma in crossed electric and magnetic fields. The potential perturbations are studied in the WKB (Wentzel-Krammers-Brillouin) approximation, i.e. for k = d lnn ₀/dx. The critical magnetic field, beyond the value of which the plasma is again stable against the studied perturbations, is computed. The effect of the inhomogeneity of the magnetic field modelled by a gravitational field is analyzed and the effect of a magnetic field, growing in the direction opposite to that of the plasma density, is pointed out. Under certain circumstances similar phenomena also arise in the current-convective instability.The author wishes to express his thanks to J. Václavík, K. Jungwirth and J. Preinhaelter for their stimulating discussions and comments.     

热电子对低频等离子体漂移波的稳定作用

本文用磁流体理论导出了热电子等离子体中,等离子体密度梯度驱动的低频漂移波的色散关系,分析了热电子的稳定作用。热电子成分稳定等离子体低频扰动的物理机制是charge uncovering效应,它只依赖于热电子同等离子体的密度比α,而不依赖于热电子的β值。热电子能降低等离子体交换模和漂移波的增长率,减少漂移波引起的等离子体反常输运损失。稳定等离子体交换模要求α≈2％,稳定等离子体漂移波要求α≈40％。理论上预示了在热电子等离子体中,等离子体漂移波是最重要的低频不稳定性。 关键词：     

Rotational properties of annulus dusty plasma in a strong magnetic field

The collective dynamics of an annulus dusty plasma formed between a co-centric conducting (non-conducting) disk and ring configuration is studied in a strongly magnetized radiofrequency (rf) discharge. A superconducting electromagnet is used to introduce a homogeneous magnetic field to the dusty plasma medium. In the absence of the magnetic field, the dust grains exhibit thermal motion around their equilibrium position. The dust grains start to rotate in the anticlockwise direction with increasing magnetic field (B > 0.02 T ), and the constant value of the angular frequency at various strengths of the magnetic field confirms the rigid body rotation. The angular frequency of dust grains linearly increases up to a threshold magnetic field (B > 0.6 T ) and after that its value remains nearly constant in a certain range of magnetic field. Further increase in magnetic field (B > 1 T ) lowers the angular frequency. Low value of the angular frequency is expected by reducing the width of the annulus dusty plasma or the input rf power. The azimuthal ion drag force due to the magnetic field is assumed to be the energy source which drives the rotational motion. The resultant radial electric field in the presence of a magnetic field determines the direction of rotation. The variation of floating (plasma) potential across the annular region at given magnetic field explains the rotational properties of the annulus dusty plasma in the presence of a magnetic field.     

Electron Density and Temperature Rise Time of a Weakly Ionized Oxygen Plasma Subject to an Alternating Electric Field

Macroscopic balance equations for particle number, momentum and energy of the electrons are derived from the Boltzmann equation which describe the time evolution of a weakly ionized oxygen plasma exposed to an alternating homogeneous electric field. The equations are applied to estimate the rise time of electron temperature and density when a rf pulse is emitted from a satellite into the ionospheric plasma.     

Electronic detection of collective modes of an ultracold plasma

Using a new technique to directly detect current induced on a nearby electrode, we measure plasma oscillations in ultracold plasmas, which are influenced by the inhomogeneous and time-varying density and changing neutrality. Electronic detection avoids heating and evaporation dynamics associated with previous measurements and allows us to test the importance of the plasma neutrality. We apply dc and pulsed electric fields to control the electron loss rate and find that the charge imbalance of the plasma has a significant effect on the resonant frequency, in excellent agreement with recent predictions suggesting coupling to an edge mode.