LINEAR RESONANT INTERACTION OF AN ELECTROMAGNETIC-WAVE WITH A COLLISIONAL INHOMOGENEOUS-PLASMA

The time evolution to a steady state of the interaction of an obliquely incident P-polarized wave with an inhomogeneous collisional cold plasma is investigated. The two-dimensional numerical solutions presented show that the rate of energy absorption and the amplitude of the magnetic field do not depend on time during this evolution (after a short transient period). Using this important result, a simple analytical two-dimensional model solution for this evolution has been constructed. It is shown that this solution fulfils the energy conservation law and thus describes the transformation of wave energy into oscillatory and thermal energy during this process. An interesting analogy between this process and that of Landau damping follows from the analytic solution.