Interaction of Pulse Modulated Electromagnetic Waves with plasmas: Electron Energy Distribution, Waves and Non-linear phenomena

PI: Prof. Sudeep Bhattacharya

Wave plasma interaction has been widely investigated especially with plasmas that are in steady state, inhomogeneous and nonmagnetic in nature. Its impact include generation of high-energy electron bunches in large amplitude electron plasma wave based plasma accelerator, excitation of temporal plasma-wave echoes in the ion wave regime and self-generation of magnetic fields. However, propagation of electromagnetic waves through temporally growing plasmas has not attained much attention in experiments and is confined mainly in theory. There have been studies on pulsed plasmas in the power off phase (afterglow and interpulse plasmas) that indicate the presence of high energy electrons in this regime and need to be explored experimentally. Recently the excitation and damping of Buneman instability in such an interaction with high power pulsed waves has been found. Furthermore, propagation of external em waves in such plasmas with high energy electron population should be explored for controlling the plasma parameters in a desired way. A detailed experimental investigation of such wave interaction with temporally growing plasma is proposed in the current research project.