In this paper we study the scattering of a plane electromagnetic wave off a spherical plasma pellet. The plasma density is taken to be overdense and very steep. This causes the cut off radius, r0, to be within a fraction of a wavelength from the spherical boundary. The problem is studied in the asymptotic limit (aω/c)→ ∞ with 0<1−r0=O(c/aω). Here a is the radius of the sphere, ω is the frequency of the incident radiation, and c is the velocity of light in free space. We develop an asymptotic technique which reduces Maxwell′s equations to three ordinary differential equations within the plasma. Our method is a blend of geometrical optics and boundary layer techniques. Straightforward geometrical optics is used to describe the scattered field.

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© 1981 American Institute of Physics.
1981
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