Oblique Bernstein wave propagation in electron‐ion plasma with electron quantization effects

Abstract

We have studied the role of electron quantization effects on the dispersion characteristics of the oblique electron Bernstein wave (EBW) in an electron-ion plasma using Vlasov-Poisson model. Our analysis shows that large thermal effects (as compared to quantization effects) give rise to the usual classical results while in the limit of strong magnetic field, the dispersion characteristics changes. The existence of a quantum Bernstein mode has been proposed which appears purely due to the electron quantization effects. The damping of the oblique EBW has also been analyzed in detail and we found that the magnitude of the damping of the wave decreases as we decrease the obliqueness parameter (parallel to perpendicular wavenumber ratio) which agrees with the earlier theoretical and experimental findings. Moreover, the strong quantization effects (ℏΩ e >> 2T) also tend to suppress the damping of EBW which contributes to the stabilization of the waves. The present findings are relevant to the laboratory laser-produced plasmas where strong external magnetic fields exist, and also to the dense astrophysical plasma environments.