Temporal and Spatial Plasma Wave Echoes

Abstract

It is shown that, if a longitudinal wave is excited in a collision-free plasma and Landau-damps away, and later a second wave is excited and also damps away, then a third wave will spontaneously appear in the plasma. This wave appears long after the first two waves have damped away at a time proportional to the interval between the first two waves, and is in that sense an echo. It is also shown that, if a wave is continuously excited at one point in a plasma and a second wave is continuously excited many Landau damping lengths from the first point, then a third wave will spontaneously appear many Landau damping lengths from the second point. Fundamentally, plasma wave echoes are possible because of the reversible nature of Landau damping. However, small-angle Coulomb collisions are very effective in destroying the echo.