Effect of bremsstrahlung radiation emission on fast electrons in plasmas

TL;DR

This paper investigates how bremsstrahlung radiation affects energetic electrons in plasmas, revealing that electrons can attain higher energies than previously expected and that soft photon emission influences electron dynamics.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of bremsstrahlung effects on electron momentum distribution, including the impact of finite-energy photon emission and anisotropic electron behavior.

Findings

Electrons can reach higher energies due to bremsstrahlung effects.

Soft photon emission significantly influences electron dynamics.

Anisotropic electron distributions are affected by bremsstrahlung.

Abstract

Bremsstrahlung radiation emission is an important energy loss mechanism for energetic electrons in plasmas. In this paper we investigate the effect of spontaneous bremsstrahlung emission on the momentum-space structure of the electron distribution, fully accounting for the emission of finite-energy photons. We find that electrons accelerated by electric fields can reach significantly higher energies than what is expected from energy-loss considerations. Furthermore, we show that the emission of soft photons can contribute significantly to the dynamics of electrons with an anisotropic distribution.