How Does Light Diffraction Occur in Plasma?

[Relena]

[SOLVED] light diffraction in plasma

This is my first post in that forum and I hope someone will help me.

It is known that photons with frequency lower than the natural oscillation frequency of plasma are reflected , but those photons with slightly lower frequencies are they fully absorbed or transmitted partially?

I've read an abstract about diffraction of a laser beam in a laser generated plasma but I didn't figure out the actual mechanism.

Any ideas?

 

[genneth]

You should always be careful about mixing quantum and classical pictures. The photon is a quantum concept, and talking about it as if it is a billiard ball, representing part of a light beam is going to lead you astray.

*Subject to linearity*, *electromagnetic waves* have the property that waves with frequency lower than the plasma frequency is reflected. This says nothing about what individual photons do.

If you don't have to invoke the idea of photons, then don't. Classical electromagnetism will get you a very long way.