Editing Plasma stealth (section)

{{Short description|Proposed aircraft  stealth technology}}

'''Plasma stealth''' is a proposed process to use ionized gas ([[plasma (physics)|plasma]]) to reduce the [[radar cross-section]] (RCS) of an [[aircraft]]. Interactions between [[electromagnetic radiation]] and ionized gas have been extensively studied for many purposes, including concealing aircraft from radar as [[stealth technology]]. Various methods might plausibly be able to form a layer or cloud of plasma around a [[vehicle]] to deflect or absorb radar, from simpler electrostatic or [[radio frequency]] discharges to more complex laser discharges.<ref name="laserplasma">{{cite conference
 |author      = I.V. Adamovich
 |author2     = J. W. Rich
 |author3     = A.P. Chernukho
 |author4     = S.A. Zhdanok
 |title       = Analysis of the Power Budget and Stability of High-Pressure Nonequilibrium Air Plasmas
 |book-title   = Proceedings of 31st AIAA Plasmadynamics and Lasers Conference, June 19&ndash;22,2000
 |date        = 2000
 |pages       = Paper 00–2418
 |url         = http://rclsgi.eng.ohio-state.edu/~adamovic/netl/PowerBudgtHighPlasma.pdf
 |url-status     = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20060910192951/http://rclsgi.eng.ohio-state.edu/~adamovic/netl/PowerBudgtHighPlasma.pdf
 |archive-date = 2006-09-10
}}</ref> It is theoretically possible to reduce RCS in this way, but it may be very difficult to do so in practice. Some Russian missiles e.g. the [[3M22 Zircon]] (SS-N-33) and [[Kh-47M2 Kinzhal]] missiles have been reported to make use of plasma stealth.