An alternative to the plasma emission model: Particle-in-cell, self-consistent electromagnetic wave emission simulations of solar type III radio bursts

Abstract

High-resolution (sub-Debye length grid size and 10 000 particle species per cell), 1.5D particle-in-cell, relativistic, fully electromagnetic simulations are used to model electromagnetic wave emission generation in the context of solar type III radio bursts. The model studies generation of electromagnetic waves by a super-thermal, hot beam of electrons injected into a plasma thread that contains uniform longitudinal magnetic field and a parabolic density gradient. In effect, a single magnetic line connecting Sun to Earth is considered, for which five cases are studied. (i) We find that the physical system without a beam is stable and only low amplitude level electromagnetic drift waves (noise) are excited. (ii) The beam injection direction is controlled by setting either longitudinal or oblique electron initial drift speed, i.e., by setting the beam pitch angle (the angle between the beam velocity vector and the direction of background magnetic field). In the case of zero pitch angle, i.e., when v→b·E→⊥=0, the beam excites only electrostatic, standing waves, oscillating at local plasma frequency, in the beam injection spatial location, and only low level electromagnetic drift wave noise is also generated. (iii) In the case of oblique beam pitch angles, i.e., when v→b·E→⊥=0, again electrostatic waves with same properties are excited. However, now the beam also generates the electromagnetic waves with the properties commensurate to type III radio bursts. The latter is evidenced by the wavelet analysis of transverse electric field component, which shows that as the beam moves to the regions of lower density and hence lower plasma frequency, frequency of the electromagnetic waves drops accordingly. (iv) When the density gradient is removed, an electron beam with an oblique pitch angle still generates the electromagnetic radiation. However, in the latter case no frequency decrease is seen. (v) Since in most of the presented results, the ratio of electron plasma and cyclotron frequencies is close to unity near the beam injection location, in order to prove that the electromagnetic emission, generated by the non-zero pitch angle beam, oscillates at the plasma frequency, we also consider a case when the magnetic field (and the cyclotron frequency) is ten times smaller. Within the limitations of the model, the study presents the first attempt to produce synthetic (simulated) dynamical spectrum of the type III radio bursts in the fully kinetic plasma model. The latter is based on 1.5D non-zero pitch angle (non-gyrotropic) electron beam that is an alternative to the plasma emission classical mechanism for which two spatial dimensions are needed.