Wave propagation in a transient anisotropic plasma medium-development of a Green´s function

Summary form only given. Transient plasmas have a time-varying plasma frequency /spl omega//sub p/(t) with a rise time T/sub r/. If the period t/sub 0/ of a source wave existing before the transient effect begins is much larger than the rise time, the ionization change may be idealized as a sudden switching of the medium. The solution to this initial value problem with a step-change in the electron density profile is known and this profile is considered as a reference profile. The switching action gives rise to new waves whose frequencies are either upshifted or downshifted. The topic of this paper is the solution of the initial value problem when t/sub 0/ is comparable to the rise time T/sub r/. The initial motivation for investigating the problem is given.