An Eigenfunction Expansion Method for the Analysis of the Source-Excited Fields in a Magnetoplasma

Abstract

Excitation of electromagnetic waves by sources immersed in a homogeneous magnetoplasma is studied using an eigenfunction expansion method. The total field is sought in terms of vector modal solutions of the source-free Maxwell equations. The content of the modal spectrum is determined and the eigenmodes of the homogeneous magnetoplasma are found to form a continuous set. The source-excited field is represented by an integral expansion in terms of the obtained continuous-spectrum modes and the expansion coefficients of such a field representation are derived in explicit form using the mode orthogonality relation. The developed approach is applied to the analysis of radiation from a rotating magnetic-field source in the whistler frequency range.