Alfven Wave Tomography for Cold MHD Plasmas

Alfven waves propagation in slightly nonuniform cold plasmas is studied by means of ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) nonlinear equations. The evolution of the MHD spectrum is shown to be governed by a matrix linear differential equation with constant coefficients determined by the spectrum of quasi-static plasma density perturbations. The Alfven waves are shown not to affect the plasma density inhomogeneities, as they scatter off of them. The application of the MHD spectrum evolution equation to the inverse scattering problem allows tomographic measurements of the plasma density profile by scanning the plasma volume with Alfven radiation