Redistribution of charged particles and self-distortion of high-amplitude electromagnetic waves in a plasma

Abstract

A steady‐state situation of plasma‐electromagnetic wave interaction has been studied in detail when the wave feeds energy to the electrons and they loose it to the neutral particles in collisions. For finite width of the wavefront, the electronic concentration is redistributed and owing to strong Coulomb interaction, ions are also dragged to the regions where energy is fed at a slower rate. The perturbations in electron density give rise to focusing of waves and severe over‐modulation of an amplitude‐modulated wave occurs.