FDTD simulation of electromagnetic wave transformation in a dynamic, inhomogeneous, bounded, and magnetized plasma

Summary form only given. The electromagnetic wave transformations in a dynamic, inhomogeneous, bounded, and magnetized plasma medium are studied by using the finite-difference time-domain method (FDTD). A Lorentz plasma model is used and the source frequency of the waves is considered high enough that ion motions are neglected. The frequency shifting characteristics are extensively studied. The successive reduction method is developed to find frequencies and amplitudes of the fields from the time series generated by the FDTD simulation. The method is superior to the conventional FFT method. In one-dimensional problems, time-only formulation is used for unbounded problems and for the periodic problems, one unit cell space formulation is used. For the plasma slab, total field/scattered field formulation and PML absorption boundary condition are used to implement compact size FDTD code. The FDTD method is compared with approximate analytical methods (perturbation method and WKB method) and the validity ranges of those analytical methods are obtained.