Effects of Spatial Variation of Thermal Electrons on Whistler-Mode Waves in Magnetosphere

Effects of Spatial Variation of Thermal Electrons on Whistler-Mode Waves in Magnetosphere

A ray-tracing method is developed to evaluate the wave growth/damping and specifically propagation trajectories of the magnetospherically reflected Whistler-mode waves. The methodology is valid for weak wave growth/damping when plasma is comprised of a cold electron population and a hot electron population, together with background neutralizing ions, e.g. protons. The effect of anisotropic thermal electrons on the propagation of Whistler-mode waves is studied in detail. Numerical results are obtained for a realistic spatial variation model of plasma population, including the cold electron density distribution, and the thermal electron density and temperature distribution. It is found that, analogous to the case of the typical cold plasma approximation, the overall ray path of Whistler-mode waves is insensitive to the thermal electron density and temperature anisotropy, and the ray path reflects where wave frequency is below or comparable to the local lower hybrid resonance frequency flhr. However, the wave growth is expected to be influenced by the thermal electron population. The results present a first detailed verification for the validity of the typical cold plasma approximation for the propagation of Whistler-mode waves and may account for the observation that the Whistler-mode waves tend to propagate on a particular magnetic shell L where the wave frequency is comparable to fthe.