Introduction

This chapter is concerned with various applications of the full wave methods discussed in ch. 18. The object is to illustrate general principles but not to give details of the results. The number of possible applications is very large and only a selection can be given here. The topics can be divided into two groups: (a) problems where the solutions can be expressed in terms of known functions, and (b) problems where computer integration of the differential equations, or an equivalent method as in §§ 18.2–18.11, is used. In nearly all applications of group (a) it is necessary to make substantial approximations. The group (a) can be further subdivided into those cases where the fourth order governing differential equations are separated into two independent equations each of the second order, and those where the full fourth order system must be used. For the separated second order equations the theory is an extension of ch. 15 which applied for an isotropic medium, and many of its results can be used here.

In all the examples of this chapter the ionosphere is assumed to be horizontally stratified, with the z axis vertical. The incident wave is taken to be a plane wave with its wave normal in the x–z plane. It is assumed that the only effective charges in the plasma are the electrons.