Penetration of Waves into Half-space Collisional Plasma

Abstract

The effects of collision on the penetration of longitudinal and transverse fields into a semi-infinite collisional plasma are investigated. The Fokker.Planck (FP) equation is solved for specular reflection at the boundary to obtain the fields. The penetration depths for longitudinal and transverse waves, i.e. <i>δ_L</i> and <i>δ_T</i>, the surface impedance <i>(z*) </i> and the reflection coefficient <i>(R_c) </i> have also been calculated numerically for <i>ω_p=5.5</i> x 10⁸ sec '; <i>v</i>/<i>ω_p</i> =1, 10^-3; and <i>T=10²</i>, 10⁴ K. It is observed that the penetration depth for transverse wave is very large, but the values of <i> δ</i>_L<i>, R_c</i> and <i>z*</i> always remain less than unity. It is also observed that the plasma temperature of the order 10⁴ K hardly affects the penetration depths and reflection coefficient.