Propagation of a transient electromagnetic disturbance in a inhomogeneous, collisional, magnetized plasma

The time response of a anisotropic, inhomogeneus magnetized plasma to a time-dependent externally applied electric field is studied. The plasma is considered as a conducting medium embedded in a static magnetic field B0. The driving term E0 is assumed to be normal to the ambient magnetic field, with a space dependence only in the (E0, B0)-plane (two-dimensional case). The problem is treated as an initial (in time) and boundary (in space) value problem, and an analytic solution is obtained for the time response of the system to a unit step of electric field