Whistler‐wave electron cyclotron heating in uniform and nonuniform magnetic fields

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Abstract
Recent laboratory experiments on single‐pass electron cyclotron heating employing whistler waves [Phys. Fluids B 1, 2010 (1989)] have shown direct evidence of nonlinear collective processes that can have a major effect on the properties of the resulting plasma. A theoretical interpretation of these experimental results is proposed herein, based on linear and nonlinear aspects of electron cyclotron heating. The observed increments in electron kinetic energy are shown to be consistent with a conventional linearized analysis of the gyroresonant interaction. The observed bursts of radiation in sidebands near the heating frequency are consistent with the nonlinear gyrophase bunching of resonant electrons in the whistler wave resulting in coherent excitation of unstable sidebands.