Propagation regimes for an electromagnetic beam in magnetized plasma
- Centre for Plasma Physics, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland (United Kingdom)
- Ramanna Fellowship Programme, Institute of Advanced Studies in Education, Lucknow University, Lucknow-226 007 (India)
The propagation of a Gaussian electromagnetic beam along the direction of magnetic field in a plasma is investigated. The extraordinary (E{sub x}+iE{sub y}) mode is explicitly considered in the analysis, although the results for the ordinary mode can be obtained upon replacing the electron cyclotron frequency {omega}{sub c} by -{omega}{sub c}. The propagating beam electric field is coupled to the surrounding plasma via the dielectric tensor, taking into account the existence of a stationary magnetic field. Both collisionless and collisional cases are considered, separately. Adopting an established methodological framework for beam propagation in unmagnetized plasmas, we extend to magnetized plasmas by considering the beam profile for points below the critical curve in the beam-power versus beam-width plane, and by employing a relationship among electron concentration and electron temperature, provided by kinetic theory (rather than phenomenology). It is shown that, for points lying above the critical curve in the beam-power versus beam-width plane, the beam experiences oscillatory convergence (self-focusing), while for points between the critical curve and divider curve, the beam undergoes oscillatory divergence and for points on and below the divider curve the beam suffers a steady divergence. For typical values of parameters, numerical results are presented and discussed.
- OSTI ID:
- 21254556
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 15, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.2988770; (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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