A relativistic theory of plasma cut-offs

Abstract

It is pointed out that at frequencies near the plasma cut-off frequencies, the corrections to wave refractive indices in a cold plasma N0due to the contribution of ions and relativistic effects can be of the same order of magnitude or greater than N0. Expressions for wave refractive indices N taking into account these corrections are derived in a limiting case |N| ≪ I. It is shown that the increase in cut-off frequencies due to effects of ions is negligibly small unless the electron plasma frequency is well below the electron gyrofrequency. The decrease of the cut-off frequencies due to relativistic effects is significant (≥ 1%) only in a rather hot plasma (Te≥ 1 keV), which may be observed in a plasma sheet region of the Earth's magnetosphere and in astrophysical conditions. These effects appear to be particularly important in a strongly anisotropic plasma (the electron perpendicular temperature is noticeably greater than the parallel one). © 1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.