Investigation on the propagation properties of obliquely incident terahertz waves in high-temperature magnetized plasma sheath surrounding the hypersonic aerocraft

Abstract Terahertz waves transmission in non-uniform spacecraft high-temperature magnetized plasma are studied theoretically by using the Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin method. Three cases of electron density distribution, namely Gaussian distribution, uniform distribution and double exponential distribution, are considered. The numerical results indicate that two transmissivity peaks can be formed by temperature or magnetic field. The electron temperature will induce one transmissivity peak of RCP waves at THz. In the presence of magnetic field and plasma, the RCP waves show a second transmissivity peak at frequency of approximately 0.15 THz. The propagation properties are also influenced by the incidence angles, collision frequency and thickness of Al. The result is expected to mitigate the “blackout” issue of hypersonic aerocraft.