ABSTRACT
The propagation of an electromagnetic wave through a homogeneous magnetoactive plasma is described most simply in two limiting cases: of the longitudinal propagation and of transverse propagation. Inhomogeneous motion either of a laboratory or any other plasma results in a weak anisotropy. Circularly polarized waves preserve their polarization almost unchanged, but change their “name”: an ordinary wave converts into an extraordinary one, and vice versa. The effect of interaction of circularly polarized waves in a magnetoactive plasma in the region of quasi-transverse magnetic field was invoked for the explanation of peculiarities of solar radiation in a radio band and some anomalies of the Faraday effect in the Earth’s ionosphere. One often needs to account for changes in the polarization of radio waves scattered on irregularities of the high-latitude and equatorial ionosphere.
