The effect of electron beam pitch angle and density gradient on solar type III radio bursts

TL;DR

This study uses 1.5D Particle-In-Cell simulations to explore how electron beam pitch angle and density gradients influence electromagnetic emissions in solar type III radio bursts, revealing the underlying mechanisms and polarization characteristics.

Contribution

It demonstrates that perpendicular beam injection drives electromagnetic emission via a non-gyrotropic mechanism, with specific dependencies on density gradients and injection angles, advancing understanding of solar radio burst generation.

Findings

Electromagnetic emission is excited at a few times the electron cyclotron frequency.

Emission intensity correlates with the beam's kinetic energy component.

The frequency of emitted waves is independent of injection angle.

Abstract

1.5D Particle-In-Cell simulations of a hot, low density electron beam injected into magnetized, maxwellian plasma were used to further explore the alternative non-gyrotropic beam driven electromagnetic emission mechanism, first studied in Tsiklauri (2011). Variation of beam injection angle and background density gradient showed that the emission process is caused by the perpendicular component of the beam injection current, whereas the parallel component only produces Langmuir waves, which play no role in the generation of EM waves in our mechanism. Particular emphasis was put on the case, where the beam is injected perpendicularly to the background magnetic field, as this turned off any electrostatic wave generation along the field and left a purely electromagnetic signal in the perpendicular components. The simulations establish the following key findings: i) Initially waves at a few w_ce/gamma are excited, mode converted and emitted at w_pe ii) The emission intensity along the beam axis is proportional to the respective component of the kinetic energy of the beam; iii) The frequency of the escaping EM emission is independent of the injection angle; iv) A stronger background density gradient causes earlier emission; v) The beam electron distribution function in phase space shows harmonic oscillation in the perpendicular components at the relativistic gyrofrequency; vi) The requirement for cyclotron maser emission, df/dv_perp > 0, is fulfilled; vii) The degree of linear polarization of the emission is strongly dependent on the beam injection angle; viii) The generated electromagnetic emission is left-hand elliptically polarized as the pitch angle tends to 90 deg; ix) The generated electromagnetic energy is of the order of 0.1% of the initial beam kinetic energy.