Plasma acceleration in a wave with varying frequency

The averaged velocity of a test particle and the averaged velocity of a plasma in an electro-magnetic wave packet with varying frequency (e.g., a radiation pulse from pulsar) is derived. The total momentum left by the wave packet in regions of plasma inhomogeneity is found. If the plasma concentration is changing due to ionization, the plasma may be accelerated parallelly or antiparallelly to the direction of the wave packet propagation, which is relevant for a laser induced breakdown in gas.The author thanks R.Klíma for numerous discussions.