Pulse power heating of the D-region

The effects of propagating high-energy electromagnetic pulses into the D-region of the ionosphere are predicted using the high-frequency approximation to Maxwell´s equations in retarded time, coupled with the moments of the Boltzmann equation including the effects of the Earth´s magnetic field. It is predicted that energy is transferred to the plasma from frequency components up to 22 MHz even for a minimum night time D-region electron profile. This is well above the quiescent collision frequencies (200 kHz) and is caused by the energy dependence of the electron collision frequencies