Surface waves on inhomogeneous plasma columns

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Abstract
Quasistatic theory is presented for axially symmetric and dipolar surface modes propagating down an inhomogeneous plasma column enclosed in a glass tube surrounded by free space. The effect of a sheath with no electrons present, radial parabolic electron density distribution, and the combination of these two effects on the dispersion relations of the axially symmetric and the dipolar modes is investigated for lossless, cold and isotropic plasma. Parabolic density variation is treated approximately by a variational technique. Dispersion relations for all three examples of inhomogenoity for both the n = 0 and n =1 modes are calculated for a wide variety of parameters of inhomogeneity. The dipolar mode is seen to be more sensitive to inhomogeneous electron density distribution than the axially symmetric mode for small βa and is thus better suited for experimental verifications than the axially symmetric mode.

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