Potential surface waves on a semibounded degenerate electron plasma: Dispersion and damping

Summary form only given. Linear properties of potential (electrostatic) surface waves (SW) in a semi-bounded collisionless plasma with degenerate electrons are studied by solving the initial-value problem within quasi-classical mean-field kinetic model, taking into account the Pauli exclusion principle for the electrons at equilibrium. The SW spectrum and collisionless damping rate are obtained numerically for a wide range of wavelengths. It is found that at long wavelengths, the SW frequency ω approaches the well-known cold-plasma limit ω = ω
p
/√2, where ω
p
is the plasma frequency, while at short wavelengths the SW spectrum approaches the spectrum of the volume zero-sound mode propagating parallel to the boundary. Most importantly, it is shown that the potential surface waves in this system with degenerate electrons remain weakly damped at all wavelengths, in contrast with the strongly damped surface waves in the corresponding system with Maxwellian electrons. Interestingly, the obtained collisionless damping rate has a non-monotonic dependence on the SW wavelength λ, with the maximum damping occurring for waves with λ~5πλ
F
, where λ
F
is the electron Thomas-Fermi length.