Small amplitude electrostatic oscillations in a cold plasma with continuously varying density have been investigated. The problem is the same as that treated by Barston (1964) but instead of his normal-mode analysis we employ the Laplace transform approach to solve the corresponding initial-value problem. We construct the Green function of the differential equation of the problem to show that there are branch-point singularities on the real axis of the complex frequency-plane, which correspond to the singularities of the Barston eigenmodes and which, asymptotically, give rise to non-collective oscillations with position-dependent frequency and damping proportional to negative powers of time. In addition we find an infinity of new singularities (simple poles) of the analytic continuation of the Green function into the lower half of the complex frequency-plane whose position is independent of the spatial co-ordinate so that they represent collective, exponentially damped modes of plasma oscillations. Thus, although there may be no discrete spectrum, in a more general sense a dispersion relation does exist but must be interpreted in the same way as in the case of Landau damping of hot plasma oscillations.

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We study the Vlasov–Poisson system of equations in Fourier-transformed velocity space. First we reformulate some results of the linear theory: in the new representation the van Kampen–Case eigenmodes are found to be ordinary functions with convenient continuity properties. We give a transparent derivation of the free-streaming temporal echo in terms of the kinematics of wave packets in Fourier-transformed velocity space. We further extend this analysis to include Coulomb interactions, which allows us to establish a connection between the echo theory, the second-order oscillations of Best and the phenomenon of linear side bands. The calculation of the time evolution of the global second-order electric field is performed in detail in the case of a Maxwellian equilibrium distribution function. We conclude that the phenomenon of linear side bands may be properly explained in terms of the intrinsic features of the equilibrium distribution function.

The decay rate of an Alfvén or plasma surface wave propagating along an inhomogeneous layer of plasma is calculated. The inhomogeneous profile is thin and odd, but otherwise arbitrary. The wave's decay rate is determined using two fundamentally different methods, the integro-differential equation approach of Sedl´ček and the Sturm-Liouville expansion technique of Cally, and found by both to depend only on the slope of the Alfvén or plasma frequency profile at the ‘resonant point’, and not on other details of its shape. The result is verified numerically. This problem represents a good example with which to compare and contrast the two methods.

A two-dimensional analysis of the toroidal AlfvCn eigenmodes (TAE) is presented, based on an integrodifferential equation describing the shear AlfvCn perturbation of a toroidal plasma equilibrium in terms of coupling among the toroidal AlfvCn continua with the usual gap structure. Using a method similar to the Van Kampen-Case analysis for the Vlasov equation, exact analytic expressions are derived for the dispersion function and the two-dimensional eigenmode structure. The dispersion function is expressed in terms of Cauchy-type integrals, which explicitly expresses the global character of TAE modes and facilitates the calculation of their damping. The continuum-damped TAE modes are shown to be, in general, not true eigenmodes of the toroidal plasma equilibrium, but rather resonances corresponding to zeros of the analytic continuation of the dispersion function onto unphysical sheets of its Riemann surface. Approximate but explicit expressions for the dispersion relation and the eigenfunction are also obtained in the limit of vanishing inverse aspect ratio.