Potential bounds and estimation for the multiple water-bag plasma

Bounds are established for the permanent-state radiation-conditioned response to a vibrating charge in the MWB (‘multiple water-bag’) model of a warm Maxwellian plasma. Those bounds vary with the observation position beyond the charge and, along any radial direction, serve as boundary curves of potential bands containing the exact potential curves. They can therefore be employed for potential estimation. The bounds are actually Poisson potentials and are independent of (the degree of accuracy in) the MWB modelling when the charge frequency ω exceeds the electron plasma frequency ωp. In this case each potential band narrows to improve potential estimation as ω/ωp increases, and in fact a relative error in estimation can be uniformly predetermined to as small as one desires for all MWB models, charge distributions and observation points by setting ω beyond an appropriate level above ωp. The bounds are, however, model-dependent if ωp exceeds ω in magnitude, in which case, they are partially Poissonian; moreover, potential estimation based on them improves as ω/ωp decreases, and an error analysis is again performed. In either case, a sharper estimation is obtained by averaging the bounds to get an estimate; thus, for instance, the associated relative error cannot exceed 0·01, 0·02 and 0·05 when ω/ωp = (101)½, (51)½ and (21)½ respectively. Applications are described.