Attenuation of a surface wave in an unmagnetized RF plasma column

Abstract

Attenuation of a surface wave is studied experimentally in an unmagnetized cylindrical plasma column sustained by the wave itself. The losses connected with the plasma creation are negligible and the wave propagation is described by the relations for the linear regime. It is shown that a simple theory of collisional attenuation, obtained by extension of the collisionless theory to the case of few collisions, predicts very well the dependence of the attenuation on the electron density, the electron collision frequency, and the geometry of the plasma column.