Theoretical and experimental studies of electromagnetic wave transmission in plasma

Abstract

The aircrafts, such as space shuttle, spaceship and so on, are facing the well-known blackout problem when they reentry into the atmosphere. The plasma sheath leads electromagnetic waves to attenuation, and the communications between the aircrafts and the ground to losing, and even completely interrupte, thereby resulting in the loss of radar targets and threatening the lives of the astronauts. Therefore, it is important to study the properties of the electromagnetic wave transmission in plasma. The characteristics of electromagnetic wave transmission in plasma are studied theoretically and experimentally in this paper. The variations of the electromagnetic wave attenuation with plasma density, collision frequency and electromagnetic wave frequency are obtained. The electromagnetic wave attenuation increasean an order of magnitude with plasma density increasing an order of magnitude. The electromagnetic wave attenuation first increases and then decreases with plasma collision frequency increasing, the electromagnetic wave attenuation decreases with the increase of electromagnetic wave frequency. The electromagnetic wave transmission properties in plasma are studied experimentally with shock tube, and the experimental results accord well with the theoretical results. The results show that increasing the electromagnetic wave frequency is an effective way to solve the reentry blackout problem.