Harmonic radio emission in randomly inhomogeneous plasma

TL;DR

This paper develops a theoretical model for harmonic radio emission in solar wind plasma, considering both conventional and inhomogeneity-driven mechanisms, highlighting the role of plasma density fluctuations in emission efficiency.

Contribution

It introduces a new mechanism involving localized density clumps for harmonic emission generation and compares it with the conventional coalescence process.

Findings

Harmonic emissions are more intense in quasihomogeneous plasma than previously thought.

Efficiency of conversion varies with heliocentric distance and plasma inhomogeneity.

Density clumps can significantly enhance the visibility of harmonic radio emissions.

Abstract

In present paper, we describe a theoretical model of generation of harmonic emissions of type III solar radio bursts. The goal of our study is to fully take into account the most efficient physical processes participating in generation of harmonic electromagnetic emission via nonlinear coupling of Langmuir waves in randomly inhomogeneous plasma of solar wind ($l+l^{'} \rightarrow t$). We revisit the conventional mechanism of coalescence of primarily generated and back-scattered Langmuir waves in quasihomogeneous plasma. Additionally, we propose and investigate another mechanism that generates the harmonic emission only in a strongly inhomogeneous plasma: the nonlinear coupling of incident and reflected Langmuir waves inside localized regions with enhanced plasma density (clumps), in the close vicinity of the reflection point. Both mechanisms imply the presence of strong density fluctuations in plasma. We use the results of a probabilistic model of beam-plasma interaction and evaluate the efficiency of energy transfer from Langmuir waves to harmonic emission. We infer that harmonic emissions from a quasihomogeneous plasma are significantly more intense than found in previous studies. The efficiency of Langmuir waves conversion into electromagnetic harmonic emission is expected to be higher at large heliospheric distances for the mechanism operating in quasihomogeneous plasma, and at small heliocentric distances - for the one operating in inhomogeneous. The evaluation of emission intensity in quasihomogeneous plasma may also be applied for type II solar radio bursts. The radiation pattern in both cases is quadrupolar, and we show that emission from density clumps may efficiently contribute to the visibility of harmonic radio emission.