For parallel propagation, use the undivided dispersion relation:
The five requested cases are:
For the perpendicular cases the undivided dispersion relation factors as , up to an overall nonzero factor. This also identifies the extraordinary plasma wave plasma wave resonance at .
For the ordinary plasma wave, choose and . The equations in a give and
The driven particle motion is entirely parallel to : the parallel Lorentz force has no magnetic contribution. Nevertheless, the ordinary plasma wave is electromagnetic, since and the Faraday law gives
An electrostatic plasma wave instead has and zero perturbed magnetic field. Alignment with the equilibrium magnetic field does not make a wave electrostatic. At the exact plasma wave cutoff , this propagating-wave distinction becomes degenerate.
Write the ordinary plasma wave as
The eikonal function is dimensionless; it varies by order across a background scale , where . The amplitudes and equilibrium plasma parameters vary on , so and . The equilibrium is stationary, so is constant along propagation. Assume infinitesimal fields, negligible collisions, , negligible ion response, and a fixed ordinary plasma wave polarization with and spatial variation along . The WKB approximation is used away from wave turning points and plasma wave resonances.
Replacing derivatives on the fast factor by and in the Maxwell equations reproduces the local magnetized cold-plasma dielectric tensor equation of b. In this one-dimensional ordinary plasma wave geometry, the Maxwell equations and the local cold parallel current density in fact give the scalar equation directly:
For , substitution gives
The leading eikonal equation is , and the next order gives , hence the flux-normalized WKB amplitude . In particular, require and ; these fail at the wave turning points.
For real , the wave equation has the conserved Wronskian flux
For this ordinary plasma wave, the time-averaged Poynting flux is . With no incident wave from the right, evaluating the same Wronskian flux on both sides proves
The coefficients in f also satisfy this identity algebraically, before the opaque-barrier expansion.
A plasma wave resonance makes the ideal cold description singular and requires an appropriate causal regularization. A passive resonant layer can absorb wave energy into particle motion, or convert it into another branch. For the two measured outgoing channels one then has
with when resonant absorption or uncounted mode conversion occurs. A numerical value of requires the layer physics; a resonance by itself does not specify a universal loss fraction. Counting all converted and absorbed energy preserves conservation of energy.
The barrier wavenumber is . The substitution gives
Thus the leading transmission coefficient is
At fixed , increasing the column width or peak plasma frequency suppresses transmission exponentially. Raising towards narrows the evanescent region and increases transmission. However, when becomes order one or smaller the two wave turning points interact; the opaque-barrier WKB approximation cannot be extrapolated to claim at . Smooth matching to an exterior is also implicit in the leading result; at the stated profile joins continuously to vacuum.
Figure 1.
Local squared wavenumber and evanescent barrier for an ordinary plasma wave
. Details.
The shaded area in the lower panel is after restoring the factor .
Wronskian flux 2026-10-25
For with real , differentiation gives . This conserved Wronskian measures directed wave flux. In a one-dimensional ordinary plasma wave, the mean Poynting flux is in Gaussian units. It proves for a lossless two-channel scattering problem.