Landau Damping and the Attenuation of Whistlers

Journal Article · Mon Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1962 · Physics of Fluids (New York)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1706494· OSTI ID:4812078

Scarf, F. L.

Transverse electromagnetic oscillations in a gyrotropic plasma exhibit Landau damping when the wave is not monochromatic. The dependence of the damping on the equilibrium distribution and the boundary (or initial) values is investigated. The resulting dispersion relation is interpreted by examining the response of a single free electron to an incident wave. It is shown that the damping mechanism is associated with the Doppler shift caused by the thermal distribution, so that some particles are in cyclotron resonance for any laboratory frequency. The correlation of whistler data with this complex dispersion relation can be used to evaluate electron temperatures at several earth radii; a specific numerical example gives T approximately 10/sup 5/ deg K at R approximately 4R₆ (geocentric).

• Research Organization: Space Tech. Labs., Los Angeles; Univ. of Washington, Seattle
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• NSA Number: NSA-16-007207
• OSTI ID: 4812078
• Journal Information: Physics of Fluids (New York), Journal Name: Physics of Fluids (New York) Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 5; ISSN 0031-9171; ISSN PFLDAS
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics
• Country of Publication: Country unknown/Code not available
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ABSORPTION
BACKGROUND
BOLTZMANN-VLASOV EQUATION
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
CYCLOTRON RADIATION
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
DISPERSION RELATIONS
DISTRIBUTION
EARTH
ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES
ELECTRONS
FREQUENCY
INTERACTIONS
IONOSPHERE
KEV RANGE
LANDAU DAMPING
MATHEMATICS
NUMERICALS
OSCILLATIONS
PLASMA
RADIO WAVES
RESONANCE
SPACE
SPECTRAL SHIFT
STABILITY
TEMPERATURE
TRANSPORT THEORY
WHISTLERS