Different kinds of accelerated propagation of relativistic electromagnetic plasma wavepackets

Abstract

Relativistic electromagnetic plasma waves are described by a dynamical equation that can be solved not only in terms of plane waves, but also for several different accelerating wavepacket solutions. Depending on the spatial and temporal dependence of the plasma frequency, different kinds of accelerating solutions can be obtained, for example, in terms of Airy or Weber functions. Also, we show that an arbitrary accelerated wavepacket solution is possible, for example, for a system with a luminal plasma slab.