EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF REFLECTOMETRY AS A DENSITY FLUCTUATION DIAGNOSTIC

In this paper, a controlled laboratory experiment to investigate the r esponse properties of reflectometry to the density fluctuations is pre sented. The reflectometer signal is observed to be highly spatially lo calized in the plasma. The quantitative measurement has demonstrated t hat the signal originates about one free space wavelength of the probe wave in front of the critical layer and this position is independent of the fluctuation wavenumber. It is also found that the sensitivity o f transverse response to wavenumbers is different from that of longitu dinal response.