Premium
Self‐distortion of a whistler pulse in a plasma
Author(s) -
Tripathi V. K.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
radio science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1944-799X
pISSN - 0048-6604
DOI - 10.1029/rs014i001p00135
Subject(s) - whistler , physics , pulse (music) , diffraction , distortion (music) , plasma , ponderomotive force , computational physics , optics , dispersion (optics) , wave propagation , nonlinear system , atomic physics , quantum mechanics , amplifier , optoelectronics , cmos , detector
Following the technique used by Akhmanov et al. to solve the nonlinear wave equation, we have investigated the propagation of temporally and spatially gaussian whistler pulses in a plasma. In the linear case the temporal width of the pulse is enhanced (due to dispersion) at a distance R ˜ τ 2 v 3 g /(∂ 2 ω/∂ k 2 ) whereas its size is enhanced (due to diffraction) over a length R d ∼ 2 kr 2 0 /(1 + ϵ + /ϵ zz ); τ, r 0 , k , v g , ϵ + , and ϵ zz are the initial time width, size, wave vector, group velocity, and the components of the dielectric tensor of the plasma. In the case of a high‐power whistler, the ponderomotive nonlinearity causes self‐focusing (for all values of ω/ω c ) of the whistler and results in severe distortion of the pulse shape.