Theory of a beam-driven plasma antenna

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a theory describing generation of electromagnetic waves in a thin beam-plasma system with a characteristic transverse size comparable with the radiation wavelength. In fact, a thin plasma column with a longitudinal density modulation works like a plasma antenna in which an electron beam can excite a superluminal wave of electric current. It has previously been shown that, if the period of this modulation coincides with the wavelength of the most unstable beam-driven mode, radiation at a frequency slightly below the plasma frequency is emitted transversely to the plasma column and generated in thin boundary layers. For the plasma thickness comparable with the skin-depth, generation of the terahertz radiation can reach high efficiency (∼10%) in such a scheme, but the absolute power of this radiation cannot be increased by increasing the transverse plasma size. In this paper, we study whether the power of such an antenna can be increased in the regime of oblique emission when the magnetized plasma is transparent to the radiated electromagnetic waves and the whole plasma volume may be involved in their generation.