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Gekelman 2004
Gekelman, W. (2004). Comment on “Properties of lower hybrid solitary structures: A comparison between space observations, a laboratory experiment, and the cold homogeneous plasma dispersion relation” by Schuck et al.. Journal of Geophysical Research 109: doi: 10.1029/2002JA009778. issn: 0148-0227.

Laboratory experiments involving the interaction of lower hybrid waves and density cavities with full width at half maximums ranging from 1 ≅ κδ ≤ 4, where δ = $frac{c}{omega_{pe}}$ is the collisionless skin depth, were performed several years ago at the University of California, Los Angeles. The results were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research in December 2001 <Rosenberg and Gekelman, 2001>. These experiments are relevant to scaled parameters in the auroral ionosphere. This is a comment to the paper of Schuck et al. <2003>, regarding the laboratory experiment on lower hybrid (LH) waves in the presence of a density striation. The main point Schuck et al. <2003> wish to make is that density striations in the auroral ionosphere are narrower than δ and that κδ ≈ 10 there. They argue that if this condition is not strictly satisfied in laboratory experiment then they are inappropriate to model the physics occurring in the ionosphere. In our experiments an incoming short perpendicular wavelength lower hybrid wave impinges upon a density striation which is many parallel (to B0) LH wavelengths long. A striking transformation occurs in which a cavity mode confined to the density gradient of the striation is excited. The mode localization does not depend on the ratio of the cavity diameter with respect to δ. We discuss the properties of lower hybrid waves, the experimental results as well as differences in the rocket and laboratory experiments.

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Abstract

Keywords
Electromagnetics, Guided waves, Ionosphere, Modeling and forecasting, Ionosphere, Plasma waves and instabilities, Ionosphere, Wave propagation, density cavities, lower hybrid waves, striation eigenmodes, lower hybrid solitary structures, experiments on LHSS
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research
http://www.agu.org/journals/jb/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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