Propagation and Absorption of ECR Waves in a Low Temperature Toroidal Plasma of Small Size and Magnetic Field

The propagation and absorption of ECR waves in a tokamak plasma with small size and low values of the electron temperature and the toroidal magnetic field is studied numerically. The cold plasma dispersion equation is solved and ray tracing calculations are performed to find the accessibility conditions and the optimal angle of wave launching for maximal ECR absorption. Absorption coefficients are computed in the high density approximation.     

Effect on Landau damping rates for a non-Maxwellian distribution function consisting of two electron populations

In many physical situations where a laser or electron beam passes through a dense plasma,hot low-density electron populations can be generated,resulting in a particle distribution function consisting of a dense cold population and a small hot population.Presence of such low-density electron distributions can alter the wave damping rate.A kinetic model is employed to study the Landau damping of Langmuir waves when a small hot electron population is present in the dense cold electron population with non-Maxwellian distribution functions.Departure of plasma from Maxwellian distributions significantly alters the damping rates as compared to the Maxwellian plasma.Strong damping is found for highly nonMaxwellian distributions as well as plasmas with a higher density and hot electron population.Existence of weak damping is also established when the distribution contains broadened flat tops at the low energies or tends to be Maxwellian.These results may be applied in both experimental and space physics regimes.     

Effect on Landau damping rates for non-Maxwellian distribution function consisting of two electron populations

In many physical situations where a laser or electron beam passes through a dense plasma, hot low-density electron populations can be generated, resulting in a particle distribution function consisting of a dense cold population and a small hot population. Presence of such low-density electron distributions can alter the wave damping rate. Kinetic model is employed to study the Landau damping of Langmuir waves when a small hot electron population is present in the dense cold electron population with non-Maxwellian distribution functions. Departure of plasma from Maxwellian distributions significantly alters the damping rates as compared to the Maxwellian plasma. Strong damping is found for highly non-Maxwellian distributions as well as plasmas with higher dense and hot electron population. Existence of weak damping is also established when the distribution contains broadened flat tops at the low energies or tends to be Maxwellian. These results may be applied in both experimental and space physics regimes.     

Scattering of light waves by electron electrostatic waves in laser produced plasmas

The propagation of light waves in an underdense plasma is studied using one-dimensional Vlasov-Maxwell numerical simulation.It is found that the light waves can be scattered by electron plasma waves as well as other heavily and weakly damping electron wave modes,corresponding to stimulated Raman and Brilluoin-like scatterings.The stimulated electron acoustic wave scattering is also observed as a high scattering level.High frequency plasma wave scattering is also observed.These electron electrostatic wave modes are due to a non-thermal electron distribution produced by the wave-particle interactions.The collision effects on stimulated electron acoustic wave and the laser intensity effects on the scattering spectra are also investigated.     

Whistler modes with wave magnetic fields exceeding the ambient field

Whistler-mode wave packets with fields exceeding the ambient dc magnetic field have been excited in a large, high electron-beta plasma. The waves are induced with a loop antenna with dipole moment either along or opposite to the dc field. In the latter case the excited wave packets have the topology of a spheromak but are propagating in the whistler mode along and opposite to the dc magnetic field. Field-reversed configurations with net zero helicity have also been produced. The electron magnetohydrodynamics fields are force free, have wave energy density exceeding the particle energy density, and propagate stably at subelectron thermal velocities through a nearly uniform stationary ion density background.     

Quasi-static surface modes of plasma layer with anisotropic electron temperature

Quasi-static surface wave propagation in a plasma layer with anisotropic electron temperature is considered. The case is analyzed where the electron temperature in the direction normal to the plasma boundary is considered to be zero, while in the direction along the boundary, electrons are described by the Maxwellian velocity distribution. It is shown that the modes of such a layer are described by equations for bulk plasma waves with renormalization of the electron density affecting the surface wave dispersion and damping.     

Nonlinear Evolution of Driven Electron Plasma Oscillations in Inhomogeneous Plasmas

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The Effect of Plasma Resonance on the Propagation of Surface Waves along Plasma-Vacuum Channel

An investigation is made of the effect of a homogeneous plasma-vacuum narrow transition region on the nature of surface wave propagation along the vacuum channel boundary. Dispersion equations, taking into account the collision damping of surface waves in the region where the wave frequency is equal to LANGMUIR frequency have been obtained. The expressions for damping coefficients of surface waves have been found both for the plane and the cylindrical geometry. Transformation of surface waves into longitudinal oscillations in the transition layer is also obtained. For a period of time, determined by the transition layer width, the surface waves, caused by initial perturbation, have been demonstrated to transform into longitudinal oscillations concentrated in the plasma-vacuum transition layer and directed along the gradient of plasma density.     

Kinetic theory of surface waves in a semibounded plasma flow

A study is made of the spectrum of surface waves in a semibounded plasma flow. The frequency spectra and damping rates of the waves propagating along the flow are analyzed both in the high-frequency range (in which the spatial dispersion is weak and the wave damping is governed primarily by electron collisions) and the low-frequency range (in which the spatial-dispersion effects dominate), with focus on the effect of the flow velocity on the propagation of ion-acoustic waves. Special attention is paid to the penetration of a static field into a plasma flowing at a supersonic velocity.     

Propagation in a warm collisional magnetoplasma enclosed in aconducting cylinder

A study is presented of the propagation of electron plasma waves in a warm collisional plasma filling a conducting cylinder and magnetized strongly in the axial direction, the plasma parameters being taken to be such that the electron-ion collision is the dominant damping process. The attenuation and phase constants are derived in suitably normalized form by using the electrodynamic method. The dispersion and attenuation characteristics for propagation in the lowest order mode in a hydrogen plasma are obtained for various values of the normalized plasma radius αω_pe/c, the electron temperature and electron density being held constant, and the characteristics are compared with those given by the usual quasi-static approximation, which is found to be valid only if αω_pe /c≲1, where α is the plasma radius, ω _pe is the plasma frequency, and c is the velocity of light in free space. The effect of the plasma frequency on the characteristics is investigated     

A theory of a receiving antenna in a moving isotropic plasma

We analyze the response of a dipole antenna to the noise-like and/or regular (quasimonochromatic) plasma oscillations and waves. The antenna is immersed in an isotropic plasma moving with velocity greater than the electron thermal velocity. In the case of a noise field, we calculate the squared spectral power density of the noise voltage at the input of a receiving antenna for frequencies close to the electron plasma frequency. It is shown that the main contribution to the noise is made by the radiation due to the excitation of waves at anomalous Doppler frequencies. In the case of an incident monochromatic wave, the mean square voltage at the antenna input is calculated as a function of the wave frequency and angle of arrival. It is shown that the effective antenna length can differ strongly from the geometrical length of the dipole. This fact results from the dispersion of longitudinal waves ensuring that many plane waves (a continuum, in the limiting case) contribute to the re-radiated field for a given direction of propagation of the radiation energy.     

THz电磁波在时变非磁化等离子体中的传播特性研究

本文建立了时变非磁化等离子体平板的一维模型,并采用时域有限差分(FDTD)方法对太赫兹(THz)电磁波在时变等离子体中传播时的反射、透射系数及吸收率进行了计算.然后根据计算结果分析了时变等离子体的上升时间、电子密度、温度以及等离子体平板厚度等参数对不同频段THz波在等离子体中传播特性的影响.分析结果表明:THz波在时变等离子体中传播时,其反射系数受等离子体电子密度和上升时间的影响较大;而吸收率则随着上升时间的减小、电子密度及平板厚度的增加而增大;此外,THz电磁波能够穿透量级为1020m-3的高密度等离子体层,可以作为再入段飞行器通信以及高密度等离子体诊断的理想工具.     

Berry effect in unmagnetized inhomogeneous cold plasmas

The propagation of electromagnetic waves in an unmagnetized weakly inhomogeneous cold plasma is examined. We show that the inhomogeneity induces a gauge connection term in wave equation, which gives rise to Berry effects in the dynamics of polarized rays in the post geometric optics approximation. The polarization plane of a plane polarized ray rotates as a result of the geometric Berry phase, which is the Rytov rotation. Also, the Berry curvature causes the optical Hall effect, according to which, rays of left/right circular polarization deflect oppositely to produce a spin current directed across the direction of propagation.     

On kinetic Alfvén waves in a dusty plasma

The dispersion and damping of a dust-modified kinetic Alfvén wave, and a lower frequency dust kinetic Alfvén wave, is investigated in a dusty plasma comprising electrons, ions, and negative dust. It is found that, when dust dynamics is neglected, the presence of cold dust modifies the usual kinetic Alfvén wave dispersion and damping owing to the inequality of the electron and ion densities. The dispersion relation of the dust kinetic Alfvén wave, with frequency below the dust cyclotron frequency, depends on the density and temperature parameters of all three species, and the wave damping is due to both electrons and ions.     

WKB solution for wave propagation in a time-varying magnetoplasmamedium: longitudinal propagation

The interaction of a right circularly polarized electromagnetic wave of frequency ω₀ with a switched-on-time-varying plasma medium, in the presence of a static magnetic field, is considered. Longitudinal propagation is assumed and ion motion is neglected. The electron density is assumed to vary slowly with time, and the solution is obtained through a WKB approximation. The main effect of switching the time-varying medium is the splitting of the original (incident) wave of frequency ω₀ into three new waves with time-varying frequencies. An exponentially increasing electron density profile is considered to illustrate the solution. The distinguishing feature of the presence of the static magnetic field is the creation of the third wave. The initial value of the instantaneous frequency ω₃ of this wave is equal to the gyrofrequency ω_b, and the final value depends on ω_b, ω₀, and the final value of the plasma frequency. ω₃ decreases with time for the profile under consideration     

电磁波在径向非均匀球对称等离子体中的衰减

提出了一种计算任意入射角的电磁波在径向非均匀球对称等离子体中的传播和吸收的模型.在此模型中，把非均匀等离子体球分成若干个同心等离子体球壳，并且假定每一个同心壳层内等离子体密度均匀分布.采用几何光学近似方法，考虑相位系数和衰减系数的矢量性，分别研究了几种典型的非均匀密度分布形式的等离子体在不同碰撞频率、中心等离子体密度和电磁波入射角条件下对入射电磁波的传播和衰减特性，获得了一些有意义的结果. 关键词： 电磁波 碰撞频率 等离子体球 能量衰减     

Bulk plasma waves in a randomly inhomogeneous conductor

The modification of the spectrum and damping of bulk plasma waves due to three-dimensional random inhomogeneities of the density of a degenerate electron gas in a conductor have been investigated using the averaged Green??s function method. The dependences of the frequency and damping of the averaged plasma waves, as well as the position ?? _m and width ???? of the peak of the imaginary part of the Fourier trans-form of the averaged Green??s function, on the wave vector k have been determined in the self-consistent approximation, which makes it possible to take into account multiple scattering of plasma waves by inhomogeneities. It has been found that, in the long-wavelength region of the spectrum, the decrease revealed in the frequency of the plasma waves is caused by the inhomogeneities, which agrees qualitatively with the behavior of the position of the peak ?? _m . In the range of large values of the correlation length of inhomogeneities and small values of k, the damping of the plasma waves tends to zero, whereas the width of the peak ???? remains finite, which is due to the nonuniform broadening. A comparison with the data of numerical calculations has been performed.     

Oblique Electron Thermal Waves in a Magnetized Plasma

Propagations of an oblique electron thermal mode under the electron plasma frequency without boundary effects are investigated experimentally and theoretically in a magnetized plasma. The phase, ray, and group velocity surfaces of the electron thermal mode are obtained in a polar coordinate. The experimental observation of the electron mode radiated from a point source is found to be in fair accord with the theoretical wave fronts which are obtained from the ray velocity surface. Wave fronts and ray trajectories of an oblique electron thermal mode radiated from a point source are numerically obtained in an inhomogeneous magnetized plasma with a use of an electrostatic kinetic theory. The spatial numerical results are indicated mainly below the electron plasma and cyclotron frequencies. Reflections of the mode in the plasma density lower than the electron plasma frequency are made clear numerically.     

Langmuir probe study in the nonresonant current drive regime of helicon discharge

Characterization of the current drive regime is done for helicon wave-generated plasma in a torus, at a very high operating frequency. A radiofrequency-compensated Langmuir probe is designed and used for the measurement of plasma parameters along with the electron energy distributions in radial scans of the plasma. The electron energy distribution patterns obtained in the operational regime suggest that Landau damping cannot be responsible for the efficient helicon discharge in the present study. A typical peaked radial density profile, high plasma temperature and absence of an appreciable amount of energetic electrons for resonant wave-particle interactions, suggest that the chosen operational regime is suitable for the study of nonresonant current drive by helicon wave. Successful and significant current drive achieved in our device clearly demonstrates the capability of nonresonant current drive by helicon waves in the present operational regime.