Parametric decay of an electromagnetic wave near electron cyclotron harmonics

Abstract

A system of equations describing the nonlinear coupling of high frequency electron Bernstein (EB) and upper hybrid (UH) waves near harmonics of the electron cyclotron frequency with low frequency lower hybrid (LH) waves in a homogeneous, weakly magnetized, and weakly collisional plasma is derived. The EB and UH modes are described by a single second order equation, taking into account the interaction with low frequency density fluctuations. The ponderomotive force of the high frequency oscillations increases near the cyclotron harmonics due to the resonance with the electron motion. The obtained equations are used to study the parametric decay of an infinite wavelength electromagnetic pump wave into EB or UH waves and LH waves. The threshold electric fields are sufficiently low to be exceeded in high frequency ionospheric modification experiments. However, the instability cannot be excited for pump frequencies near the cyclotron harmonics. For the decay into EB waves, the resulting forbidden frequency range depends on the harmonic number in a power law manner, consistent with observations of stimulated electromagnetic emissions in ionospheric modification experiments. Further, for sufficiently high pump electric fields the instability is also suppressed, when the frequency mismatch around the eigenfrequencies at which the interaction can occur is of the order of the frequency separation between the EB and UH modes near the cyclotron harmonics.