Abstract

Dispersion relations of electromagnetic surface waves in a magnetized relativistic plasma propagating in a cylindrical column surrounded by vacuum are derived by means of the relativistic fluid equations. The zero order relativistic beam is assumed to stream along the direction of the axial magnetic field. The coupled equations of the E- and B-wave modes are solved analytically in terms of the cylindrical coordinates in weak or intermediate values of the magnetic field in which the cyclotron frequency is much smaller than the relativistic Doppler-shifted frequency. The entangled field components of the E- and B-waves are decoupled by assuming that the flow is incompressible. The surface wave dispersion relations of the E- and B-wave modes show a strong similarity and symmetry. The static magnetic field splits the E- and B-waves, thus doubling the modes in unmagnetized plasma. By taking the radius of the cylinder infinite, the dispersion relations in a semi-infinite plasma are derived.

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