Self-focusing and cross-focusing of Gaussian electromagnetic beams in fully ionized collisional magnetoplasmas

This paper presents an analysis and subsequent discussion of the phenomena of self-focusing of single electromagnetic Gaussian beams and cross-focusing of multiple coaxial beams in fully ionized magnetoplasma, taking into account the Ohmic heating of the electrons by the beams and loss of energy by electrons due to collision with the ions and electronic thermal conduction; the energy gained by ions in collision with the electrons has been equated to the energy lost on account of ionic thermal conduction. It is seen that the inclusion of the ionic thermal conduction reduces self/cross-focusing for high values of the magnetic field (nu(e)<Omega(c)) and enhances the same for low values of the magnetic field (nu(e)>omega(c)); here nu(e) is the electron collision frequency and omega(c),Omega(c) are the cyclotron frequencies of electrons and ions, respectively. The wave frequency is assumed to be much higher than the cyclotron frequency of the electrons. The results lead to the conclusion that considerable error occurs by neglecting ionic thermal conduction in a collisional plasma. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.