Wave nature of moving striations in a longitudinal magnetic field

Wave nature of stationary moving striations in helium and neon discharges in a uniform longitudinal magnetic field is studied. With the increase of the magnetic field, the frequency of natural striations decreases, while the wave length increases, and they damp out at high field region. Artificial excitations in these gases show that the wave length is proportional to the excitation frequency for given magnetic field and the slope of linear lines increases with the field. These wave nature of striations is explained following the dispersion relation derived from the consideration of waves of ionization and including effects of the magnetic field on the ionization.