Propagation of waves in plasma

I would like to discuss briefly some questions relating to waves in plasmas with particular emphasis on plasma media wherein electromagnetic properties are highlighted. In view of the stress on practical applications in this symposium, I will inject, at an appropriate point, an example relating to wave reflection and transmission. Before discussing wave propagation in a plasma system, one should be definitive about the nature of the system. In this instance, it is a composite one, comprising an electromagnetic field and a number of particle fields, the latter describing electron, ion, and neutral particles. To give an analytic indication of the nature of the plasmas to be considered, the overall system is identified by a set of coupled equations: the Maxwell field equations for the electric and magnetic fields within the plasma, and a set of macroscopic transport equations describing the velocity, pressure, and temperature of each of the constituents of the plasma. The set of transport equations is derivable from a Boltzmann equation with a binary collision term under the inviscid assumption that the distribution function for each plasma constituent is locally Maxwellian about the average velocity of the constituent.

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