PULSE POWER HEATING OF THE D-REGION

The effects of propagating high-energy electromagnetic pulses into the D-region of the ionosphere are predicted using the high-frequency approximation to Maxwell's equations in retarded time, coupled with the moments of the Boltzmann equation including the effects of the earth's magnetic field. It is predicted that energy is transferred to the plasma from frequency components up to 22 MHz even for a minimum night time D-region electron profile. This is well above the quiescent collision frequencies (200 kHz) and is caused by the energy dependence of the electron collision frequencies.