Auroral Kilometric Radiation -- the Electron Cyclotron Maser Paradigm

TL;DR

This paper discusses the electron cyclotron maser mechanism responsible for auroral kilometric radiation, emphasizing its diagnostic importance in space weather and planetary magnetospheres, and highlights unresolved physical questions in its generation.

Contribution

It reviews the current understanding of AKR and proposes that studying its generation mechanism can advance knowledge of non-thermal plasma radiation in various astrophysical environments.

Findings

AKR is linked to electron cyclotron maser instability.

AKR provides diagnostic insights into upper auroral ionosphere.

Many fundamental questions about AKR generation remain open.

Abstract

Auroral kilometric radiation (AKR) is the paradigm of intense radio emission from planetary magnetospheres. Being close to the electron gyro frequency and/or its lower harmonics, its observation indicates the non-thermal state of the source plasma. Emission is produced when the plasma enters a state of energetic excitation which results in deformation of the electron distribution function. Under certain conditions this leads to "quasi-coherent" emission. It is believed that the weakly-relativistic electron-cyclotron-maser instability is responsible for this kind of radiation. Since energetically radio radiation normally is not of {primary} importance in the large-scale magnetospheric phenomena, AKR as such has, for the purposes of large-scale magnetospheric physics, become considered a marginal problem. Here this notion is questioned. AKR while applying to the auroral region mainly during magnetospherically disturbed times {carries just a fraction of the total substorm energy. It is, however, of diagnostic power in the physics of the upper auroral ionosphere and Space Weather research}. As a fundamental physical problem of generation of radiation in non-thermal plasmas {it remains not resolved yet. Many questions have been left open even when dealing only with the electron-cyclotron-maser. These can advantageously be studied in the magnetosphere proper both by observation and theory, the only continuously accessible place in space. The most important are listet here with hint on how they should be attacked. Its value is to be sought in the role it should play in application to the other magnetized planets, extra-solar planets, and to strongly magnetized astronomical objects} as an important {tool to diagnose the matter state responsible for radiation in the radio frequency range beyond thermal, shock or synchrotron radiation.