Geometrical effects in X-mode scattering

Abstract

One technique to extend microwave scattering as a probe of long-wavelength density fluctuations in magnetically confined plasmas is to consider the launching and scattering of extraordinary (X-mode) waves nearly perpendicular to the field. When the incident frequency is less than the electron cyclotron frequency, this mode can penetrate beyond the ordinary mode cut-off at the plasma frequency and avoid significant distortions from density gradients typical of tokamak plasmas. In the more familiar case, where the incident and scattered waves are ordinary, the scattering is isotropic perpendicular to the field. However, because the X-mode polarization depends on the frequency ratios and the ray angle to the magnetic field, the coupling between the incident and scattered waves is complicated. This geometrical form factor must be unfolded from the observed scattering in order to interpret the scattering due to density fluctuations alone. The geometrical factor is calculated here for the special case of scattering perpendicular to the magnetic field. For frequencies above the ordinary-mode cut-off the scattering is relatively isotropic, while below cut-off there are minima in the forward and backward directions which go to zero at approximately half the ordinary-mode cut-off density.