"Much attention has been given also to various sepecific problems, in particular the propagation and generation of waves in the Earth's ionosphere and magnetosphere, in the interplanetary plasma, and in laboratory apparatus, as well as solid-state plasmas." -- p. xiii.

In this book, the author draws on his broad experience to describe both the theory and the applications of wave propagations. The contents are presented in four parts and the sequence of these parts reflect the development of ionospheric and propagational research in areas such as space research geophysics and communications. The first part of the book presents an outline of the theory of electromagnetic waves propagating in a cold electron plasma. For reference, vector analysis, dyadics and eigenvalues introduced in this part are presented in the appendices. Practical aspects of radio wave propagation are the subject of the second part. The typical conditions in different frequency ranges are discussed and the irregular features of the ionospheric structure such as sound and gravity waves are also considered. Warm plasma and the effects of ions are considered in the third part, which includes a discussion of sound-like waves in electron and ion plasmas. Nonlinear effects and instabilities are described in the fourth part.

This book is concerned with the ionosphere and the magnetosphere, and the theory of their effect on radio waves. It includes accounts of some mathematical topics now widely used in this study, particularly W. K. B. approximations, Airy integral functions and integration by steepest descents. The subject is divided into ray theory and full wave theory. Ray theory is useful for high frequencies when the ionosphere is treated as a horizonally stratified medium. The discussion of the magnetosphere, whose structure is more complicated, includes an account of whistlers and ion cyclotron whistlers. The book has been planned both for final year undergraduates and as a reference book for research. It is suitable as a course book on radio propagation for students of physics or electrical engineering or mathematics. Some of the topics are presented from an elementary viewpoint so as to help undergraduates new to the subject. The later parts are more advanced. Because the subject is so large and has seen many important recent advances, some topics have had to be treated briefly, but there is a full bibliography with about 600 references.

One essential feature of plasma media is supporting various plasma waves and dictating electromagnetic wave propagation. This textbook provides students with an understanding of plasma waves, which is key to theoretical and experimental plasma research and understanding the experimental results, and will enable them to expand their studies into related areas.The first part of the text provides the basis of plasma modes, including the formulations, analyses and the physical characterizations. The second part introduces techniques for the studies of wave propagation in inhomogeneous plasma and of nonlinear mode-mode coupling in turbulent plasma as well as in active plasma, applied to exemplify the excitation of parametric instabilities in high-frequency (HF) wave heated ionospheric plasma. The third part introduces nonlinear plasma waves of periodic function forms and of solitary forms; a potential application of the HF wave-ionosphere interaction for setting up an ionospheric very-low-frequency transmitter for underwater communications is introduced.This is also a useful reference book for researchers in the areas of plasma physics and engineering, and in geophysics.