A theory for scattering by density fluctuations based on three-wave interaction

The theory of scattering by charged particle fluctuations of a plasma is developed for the case of zero magnetic field. The source current is derived on the basis of: (1) a three wave interaction between the incident and scattered electromagnetic waves and one electrostatic plasma wave (either Langmuir or ion acoustic), and (2) a synchronous interaction between the same two electromagnetic waves and the discrete components of the charged particle fluctuations. Previous work is generalized by no longer making the assumption that the frequency of the electromagnetic waves in large compared to the plasma frequency. The general result is then applied to incoherent scatter, and to scatter by strongly driven plasma waves. An expansion is carried out for each of those cases to determine the lower order corrections to the usual high frequency scattering formulas.