Topology of the Warm plasma dispersion relation at the second Harmonic Electron Cyclotron Resonance Layer

The Warm Plasma Dispersion Relation, for waves in the electron cyclotron resonance range of frequencies, can be cast into the form of a bi-quadratic equation for N⊥, where the coefficients are a function of N2⊥ and an iterative procedure is required to obtain a solution. However, this iterative procedure is not well understood and fails to converge towards a solution at the 2nd harmonic resonance layer, in particular at higher densities where the wave can couple to an electron Bernstein wave. This paper focuses on a solution to the poor convergence of the iterative method, enabling determination of the topology of the dispersion relation around the 2nd harmonic using a fully relativistic code for oblique waves. A feed-forward controller is proposed with the ability to adjust the rotation of a step of N2⊥ within the complex plane, while also limiting the step-size. It is shown that implementation of the controller stabilizes unstable solutions, while improving overall robustness of the iteration. This allows the evaluation of the coupling between the fast extraordinary mode and electron Bernstein waves at the 2nd harmonic electron cyclotron resonance layer, for non-perpendicularly propagating waves.