Collisional Damping of the Whistler Mode in a Dense Plasma

The effect of Coulumb collisions on the transverse wave along an external magnetic field in a fully ionized dense plasma is investigated by means of the Fokker-Planck equation. Expressions for the dispersion relation and the spatial damping constants of the whistler mode are obtained. The spatial damping constants, to first order, are given by κ_i={2}{3√π}·({kνc}{ωc-ω})·[1+7/5({kv₀}{ω-ωc})^2], κ_e={14}{15√2π}·({kνc}{ωc-ω})({kv₀}{ω-ωc})^2, where ν c is the electron collision frequency, v 0 is the electron thermal velocity, k is the wave number and ω c is the electron cyclotron frequency. Finally, their applications to the experimental results are briefly discussed.