Admittance of a waveguide radiating into stratified plasma

Abstract

A slot covered by a stratified plasma is assumed to radiate into a wide waveguide instead of free space. The slot admittance approximates the free space admittance of the slot for waveguide diameters exceeding 6 to 10\lambda . For thick plasma layers the computed slot admittance checks with earlier admittance calculations for a laterally unbounded plasma. When approximating a plasma profile of a typical hypersonic re-entry, a multilayer plasma model in a wide waveguide appears to provide a more accurate slot admittance than a single-layer approximation in a laterally unbounded geometry.