PIC Simulation of Double Plasma Resonance and Zebra Pattern of Solar Radio Bursts

TL;DR

This study uses PIC simulations to explore the double plasma resonance effect and its role in generating zebra patterns in solar radio bursts, providing new insights into their physical origin.

Contribution

First simulation of zebra pattern formation via ECMI and DPR effect, directly linking plasma parameters to observed solar radio burst features.

Findings

Simulations reproduce DPR effect for upper hybrid and Z modes.

H emission is significantly stronger than F emission and correlates with ZPs.

Peak intensity of H emission aligns with integer ratios of plasma parameters.

Abstract

Latest study reports that plasma emission can be generated by energetic electrons of DGH distribution via the electron cyclotron maser instability (ECMI) in plasmas characterized by a large ratio of plasma oscillation frequency to electron gyro-frequency ($\omega_{pe}/\Omega_{ce}$). In this study, on the basis of the ECMI-plasma emission mechanism, we examine the double plasma resonance (DPR) effect and the corresponding plasma emission at both harmonic (H) and fundamental (F) bands using PIC simulations with various $\omega_{pe}/\Omega_{ce}$. This allows us to directly simulate the feature of zebra pattern (ZP) observed in solar radio bursts for the first time. We find that (1) the simulations reproduce the DPR effect nicely for the upper hybrid (UH) and Z modes, as seen from their variation of intensity and linear growth rate with $\omega_{pe}/\Omega_{ce}$, (2) the intensity of the H emission is stronger than that of the F emission by $\sim$ 2 orders of magnitude and vary periodically with increasing $\omega_{pe}/\Omega_{ce}$, while the F emission is too weak to be significant, therefore we suggest that it is the H emission accounting for solar ZPs, (3) the peak-valley contrast of the total intensity of H is $\sim 4$, and the peak lies around integer values of $\omega_{pe}/\Omega_{ce}$ (= 10 and 11) for the present parameter setup. We also evaluate the effect of energy of energetic electrons on the characteristics of ECMI-excited waves and plasma radiation. The study provides novel insight on the physical origin of ZPs of solar radio bursts.