X-Wave Propagation Characteristics in a Collisional, Inhomogeneous Plasma Slab

Abstract

Normally incident electromagnetic wave on a collisional, inhomogeneous
magnetoplasma slab has been treated as a multilayered system of homogeneous sub-cells
within the transfer matrix method. For incident wave frequencies much above the ion
cyclotron frequency, the extraordinary elliptically polarized wave mode is relevant for
wave propagation normal to a dc-magnetic field. For a sinusoidal plasma density profile,
the transmittance, reflectance and absorbance are plotted versus wave frequency
normalized to electron cyclotron frequency   0 / ce for different ratios of electron
cyclotron to electron plasma frequencies. For fixed ce and by varying the wave
frequency, the curves of the transmittance and reflectance show two pass and two stop
bands. When the ratio of cyclotron frequency to plasma frequency /
ce pc
  is increased,
all bands shift to the region of low wave frequency, the pass bands become broader and the
stop bands become narrower. The absorbance show three absorption bands; namely, two
collisional absorption bands of evanescent waves at the X-wave cut-off frequencies and a
resonance absorption band at the upper hybrid frequency. It has also been found that a
homogeneous plasma slab overestimates the collisional absorption at cut-offs and has a
broader absorption band of the upper hybrid resonance.