Comparison of wave propagation studies in plasmas using three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain and ray-tracing methods

Power-flow trajectories of electromagnetic waves through a spatially nonuniform plasma have been computed using direct solutions of Maxwell’s equations using the three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. This method yields accurate information on refraction as well as absorption effects. The method can be used to compute power-flow trajectories for plasmas with arbitrarily varying density profiles, including effects due to arbitrarily shaped conducting or dielectric surfaces bounding the plasma. Furthermore, since FDTD is computationally expensive, especially for parametric studies, it is desirable to use ray tracing to estimate refraction effects. A quantitative comparison is performed between two different methods of obtaining exact and approximate solutions of Maxwell’s equations in order to assess their relative utility in different situations. In the present work, we limit ourselves to a cold, collisional, unmagnetized plasma, where the response to electromagnetic waves is fully specified by a dispersion relation based on magnetoionic theory. It is shown that ray tracing in such plasmas yields accurate results only when two conditions are satisfied. Firstly, the density scale length should be long as compared to the free-space wavelength of the incident wave. Secondly, the conduction current should be small as compared to the displacement current in the medium. The second condition is one which has been identified for the first time.