Electromagnetic Pulses at the Boundary of a Nonlinear Plasma

Citation

Satorius, Edgar Harry (1975) Electromagnetic Pulses at the Boundary of a Nonlinear Plasma. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/d6ww-a643. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:09172021-215240263

Abstract

This paper describes an investigation of the behavior of strong electromagnetic pulses at the boundary of a nonlinear, cold, collision-less, and uniform plasma. The nonlinearity considered here is due to the nonlinear terms in the fluid equation which is used to describe the plasma.

Two cases are studied. First, we consider the case where there is a voltage pulse applied across the plane boundary of a semi-infinite, nonlinear plasma. Two different voltage pulses are considered: a delta function pulse and a suddenly turned-on sinusoidal pulse. The resulting electromagnetic fields propagating in the nonlinear plasma are found in this case. In the second case, we consider the reflection of incident E-polarized and H-polarized, electromagnetic pulses at various angles of incidence from a nonlinear, semi-infinite plasma. Again, two forms of incident pulses are considered: a delta function pulse and a suddenly turned-on sinusoidal pulse. In case two, the reflected electromagnetic fields are found.

In both cases, the method used for finding the fields is to first solve the fluid equation (which describes the plasma) for the nonlinear conduction current in terms of the electric field using a perturbation method (since the nonlinear effects are assumed to be small). Next, this current is substituted into Maxwell's equations, and finally the electromagnetic fields which satisfy the boundary conditions are found.

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