Plasma wave propagation conditions analysis using the warm multi-fluid model

Abstract

Although an accurate description of wave propagation and absorption in plasmas requires complicated full-wave solutions or kinetic simulations, local dispersion analysis can still be helpful to capture the main physics of wave properties. Plasma wave propagation conditions or accessibility informs whether a wave can propagate to a region, which usually depends on the wave frequency, wave vector, the local plasma density, and magnetic field. We demonstrate a warm multi-fluid eigenvalue model and a matrix approach to rapidly calculate plasma wave accessibility diagrams, where thermal effects are also included via an isotropic pressure term. All cold plasma waves, from high-frequency electron cyclotron waves, intermediate-frequency lower hybrid waves, to low-frequency ion cyclotron waves, are presented. By comparing with the kinetic model, it is interesting to find that the warm multi-fluid model, though incapable of reproducing the Bernstein modes, can provide a quick way to determine whether thermal effects are important.

Keywords

• Plasma waves
• Multi-fluid
• Dispersion relation