Surface Waves on a Plasma Half-Space

Abstract

The effect of density gradients and a finite temperature on the dispersion relation for surface waves on a plasma half-space has been investigated analytically. The full set of Maxwell's equations is used to obtain the dispersion of surface waves on a warm homogeneous plasma, thus complementing earlier work on the electrostatic mode. The full surface-wave dispersion relation is then derived for a cold plasma with arbitrary but weak density profile in the WKB limit. Finally, the dispersion of electrostatic surface modes on a cold plasma with a linear density profile of arbitrary strength is obtained. It is shown that when the density variation over a wavelength is very large, a new type of damped surface wave with a frequency higher than the surface plasma frequency is possible.