Non-Geometrical Optics Investigation of Mode Conversion in Weakly Relativistic Inhomogeneous Plasmas. Final Report

摘要

The heating of weakly inhomogeneous plasmas at the cyclotron resonance harmonic layers by waves incident nearly perpendicularly to the equilibrium field is investigated. In such problems the standard geometrical optics breaks down and the relativistic corrections become significant near the resonance layer. The full wave equations are obtained by a boundary layer analysis. In our method, we appropriately rescale and renormalize the variables within the boundary layer, and then derive the governing field equations by (i) solving the linearized relativistic Vlasov equation, (ii) calculating the current density, and (iii) substituting the latter in Maxwell's equations. By doing so we avoid the ambiguities which arise when the governing equations are inferred from the uniform field dispersion relation by replacing the refractive index by some spatial differential operators, as was usually done by previous investigators. 5 refs. (ERA citation 11:025045)