A survey of mode-conversion transparency windows between external electromagnetic waves and electron Bernstein waves for various plasma slab boundaries

摘要

For the plasma slab boundary with monotonically increasing density profile along the x axis and the magnetic field along the z axis, both N-z and N-y components of the refractive index are parallel to the plasma slab and are conserved in the mode-conversion process between the vacuum transverse electromagnetic (TEM) waves and the electron Bernstein ( B) waves. Information of Nz and Ny is sufficient to identify the waves uniquely both for TEM waves and B waves coupled by mode conversion. Furthermore, the wave differential equation which governs the mode-conversion process can be written in the normalized form with a few numbers of the normalized parameters and variables for the linear density profile. Thus, the mode-conversion transparency window, which is presented as a contour plot of the mode-conversion rate versus the N-z-N-y plane, can be categorized for the pair of parameters of the density scale length normalized to the wavelength in vacuum L-n/lambda(0) and the frequency to the cyclotron frequency omega/Omega.