Saturation of cyclotron maser instability driven by an electron loss-cone distribution

Abstract

The resoinance diffusion of electrons in velocity space caused by the excited EM wave fields is considered to be the dominant saturation process of cyclotron maser instability that is driven by an electron loss-cone distribution. An upper-bound of the saturation level is derived analytically. Since the resulting saturation level is low the resonance diffusion is indeed responsible for the saturation of the cyclotron maser instability.