Radiation propagating transverse to the external magnetic field from an electromagnetic source in an unbounded plasma

The radiation characteristics of a line source of magnetic current embedded in an unbounded plasma are investigated for the case in which a uniform magnetic field is impressed externally throughout the medium in the direction of the source. The plasma is assumed to be a homogeneous and macroscopically neutral mixture of compressible gas of electrons and ions. A two-fluid continuum theory of plasma dynamics is employed. It is shown that it is possible to define three suitable wave functions which satisfy separately simple wave equations whose solutions are written down by inspection. These wave functions specify the three possible modes which are identified, respectively, to be the modified forms of the electromagnetic, the electron plasma and the ion plasma modes. The limiting behavior of these modes are discussed for the following two cases: 1) infinite source frequency and 2) vanishing external magnetic field. The dispersion relations for the three modes are examined in detail for the general case using a perturbation procedure. It is shown that the modified ion plasma (MIP) mode propagates for all frequencies whereas both the modified electron plasma (MEP) mode and the modified electromagnetic (MEM) mode have a low-frequency cutoff. Explicit expressions for the cutoff frequencies are obtained. The power radiated in each of the three modes is also evaluated. It is found that the power radiated in the MEM mode is always lower than that due to the line source in free space, whereas the power radiated in the two plasma modes is higher than that value for certain ranges of frequency.