Collisional and resonance absorption of electromagnetic waves in a weakly collisional, inhomogeneous magnetoplasma slab

Abstract

Absorbance of normally incident electromagnetic wave on a cold, weakly collisional, and inhomogeneous magnetoplasma slab is investigated. The plasma density is Budden-like sinusoidal profile, where the inhomogeniety is treated as a multilayered system of homogeneous sub-cells within the transfer matrix technique. For incident wave frequencies much above the ion cyclotron frequency, only right hand circularly polarized waves are relevant for wave propagation parallel to a static magnetic field. Calculations are performed in normalized parameters, that make the results suitable for many applications including atmospheric and laboratory plasmas. The presence of the dc-magnetic field leads to the formation of two absorption bands explained by plasma collisional dissipation and electron cyclotron resonance in the low frequency branch of the $R$-wave below the electron cyclotron frequency. The transmittance shows the emergence of the low frequency electron cyclotron wave, which becomes a Whistler mode at very low frequency. More detailed discussion on the effect of plasma collisionality, inhomogeneity, and dc-magnetic field on the propagation characteristics is given at the relevant place within the body of the manuscript.

Keywords

• Magnetoplasma slab
• Inhomogeneous plasma
• Reflectance
• Transmittance
• Absorbance