Interaction of a Bunched Electron Beam with a Gyrotropic Plasma

Abstract

The interaction of a prebunched beam with an anisotropic medium is considered for the generation of coherent electromagnetic energy in the low and submillimeter region. Generalized expressions are obtained for the fields created by a prebunched beam of general shape in an anistropic medium. The permeability is assumed to be a scalar constant whereas the permittivity is tensorial. Two special cases are considered: one is that of a helical prebunched beam and the other is that of a rectilinear beam, both interacting with gyrotropic gaseous plasmas. Ionization, scattering, and rf field effects on the beam are neglected. In addition to the solutions of the inhomogeneous vector wave equation, a method is suggested whereby the free mode solutions could be directly deduced.