Experimental Study on the Properties of Helicon Mode Whistler Waves

Whistler waves, as common plasma waves, play an important role in the Earth’s inner magnetosphere. Through the interaction of whistler waves and particles, some electrons can be accelerated to relativistic energy, and another part of the electrons are scattered into the loss cone and settled into the atmosphere to form diffuse auroras. The whistler wave is a right-handed polarized wave whose equiphase plane is usually considered to be a plane in space plasma. In recent years, ground plasma experiments are becoming an important means to study the excitation and propagation of whistler waves. In the Keda Linear Magnetized Plasma device (KLMP) at the University of Science and Technology of China, a magnetic loop antenna is used to excite plasma waves and a 3D magnetic probe is used to measure the evolution of wave magnetic field. The measurement results show that the antenna has excited a right-handed polarization wave with a helical equiphase plane. The helicon waves modules are m=0 and m=1 according to different antenna settings. By calculating the wavelength and frequency of the waves, it is confirmed that the helicon waves can satisfy the dispersion relation of whistler waves, laying the foundation for further research on whistler waves in plasma experimental devices.