Generalized dispersion relation for electron Bernstein waves in a non-Maxwellian magnetized anisotropic plasma

A generalized dielectric constant for the electron Bernstein waves using non-Maxwellian distribution functions is derived in a collisionless, uniform magnetized plasma. Using the Neumann series expansion for the products of Bessel functions, we can derive the dispersion relations for both kappa and the generalized (r, q) distributions in a straightforward manner. The dispersion relations now become dependent upon the spectral indices kappa and (r, q) for the kappa and the generalized (r, q) distribution, respectively. Our results show how the non-Maxwellian dispersion curves deviate from the Maxwellian depending upon the values of the spectral indices chosen. It may be noted that the (r, q) dispersion relation is reduced to the kappa distribution for r=0 and q=kappa+1, which, in turn, is further reducible to the Maxwellian distribution for kappa ->infinity. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3503606]