Longitudinal propagation of waves in a switched magnetoplasma medium: Eckersley approximation

Summary form only given. The interaction of electromagnetic radiation with a time-switched magnetoplasma within the radio approximation has been studied in detail by D.K. Kalluri (1989) for the case of longitudinal propagation. For ω_bi≪ω≪ω_be, called the Eckersley range, where ω_bi and ω_be are the ion gyrofrequency and electron gyrofrequency, respectively, the first wave contains little power and the Eckersley approximation reduces the characteristic equation, which is cubic in the radio range, to a simple quadratic. An expression is given for the frequencies of the second and third waves, when the incident wave is right circularly polarized (R incidence). The normalized electric and magnetic fields are reduced to a simple form. The power content, the region of validity of the Eckersley range, and other numerical results for R incidence as well as L incidence were obtained