Physics Commons^™

Experimental Investigation Of A Parametric Excitation Of Whistler Waves, Nathan E. Zechar

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Previous theoretical work has shown that a parametric interaction between electrostatic lower oblique resonance (LOR) and ion acoustic waves (IAW) can produce electromagnetic whistler waves in a cold magnetized plasma. It was also demonstrated theoretically that this interaction can more efficiently generate electromagnetic whistler waves than by direct excitation using a conventional loop antenna. For the purpose of experimentally validating the above result, an experimental facility was designed and constructed utilizing a vacuum chamber, electromagnets, and a helicon plasma source array capable of producing a volume of plasma with high density and spatial uniformity. Additionally, positioning equipment and plasma diagnostics …