The warm plasma resonance cone structure of the quasistatic fieldproduced by a gap source in a bounded magnetized slab plasma isdetermined theoretically. This is initially determined for a homogeneousor mildly inhomogeneous plasma with source frequency lyingbetween the lower hybrid frequency and the plasma frequency. Itis then extended to the complicated case of an inhomogeneous plasmawith two internal lower hybrid layers present, which is of interestto radio frequency heating of plasmas.
In the first case, the potential is obtained as a sum of multiplyreflected warm plasma resonance cones, each of which has a similarstructure, but a different size, amplitude, and position. Animportant interference between nearby multiply-reflected resonancecones is found. The cones are seen to spread out as they moveaway from the source, so that this interference increases and theindividual resonance cones become obscured far away from the source.
In the second case, the potential is found to be expressible asa sum of multiply-reflected, multiply-tunnelled, and mode convertedresonance cones, each of which has a unique but similar structure.The effects of both collisional and collisionless damping are includedand their effects on the decay of the cone structure studied.Various properties of the cones such as how they move into and outof the hybrid layers, through the evanescent region, and transformat the hybrid layers are determined. It is found that cones cantunnel through the evanescent layer if the layer is thin,and the effect of the thin evanescent layer is to subdue thesecondary maxima of cone relative to the main peak, while slightlybroadening the main peak and shifting it closer to the cold plasmacone line.
Energy theorems for quasistatic fields are developed and appliedto determine the power flow and absorption along the individualcones. This reveals the points of concentration of the flow and thevarious absorption mechanisms.
