Particle-in-cell and weak turbulence simulations of plasma emission

Abstract

The plasma emission process, which is the mechanism for solar type II and type III radio bursts phenomena, is studied by means of particle-in-cell and weak turbulence simulation methods. By plasma emission, it is meant as a loose description of a series of processes, starting from the solar flare associated electron beam exciting Langmuir and ion-acoustic turbulence, and subsequent partial conversion of beam energy into the radiation energy by nonlinear processes. Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation is rigorous but the method is computationally intense, and it is difficult to diagnose the results. Numerical solution of equations of weak turbulence (WT) theory, termed WT simulation, on the other hand, is efficient and naturally lends itself to diagnostics since various terms in the equation can be turned on or off. Nevertheless, WT theory is based upon a number of assumptions. It is, therefore, desirable to compare the two methods, which is carried out for the first time in the present paper with numerical solutions of the complete set of equations of the WT theory and with two-dimensional electromagnetic PIC simulation. Upon making quantitative comparisons it is found that WT theory is largely valid, although some discrepancies are also found. The present study also indicates that it requires large computational resources in order to accurately simulate the radiation emission processes, especially for low electron beam speeds. Findings from the present paper thus imply that both methods may be useful for the study of solar radio emissions as they are complementary.

21 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (10)

• A Review of Solar Type III Radio Bursts
• Global Properties of Solar Flares
• Emission of Type II Radio Bursts - Single-Beam versus Two-Beam Scenario
• Dynamics of electron beams in the solar corona plasma with density fluctuations
• Dynamics of electron beams in the inhomogeneous solar corona plasma
• Nonlinear Wave Interactions as Emission Process of Type II Radio Bursts
• Self-consistent particle-in-cell simulations of fundamental and harmonic plasma radio emission mechanisms
• Density fluctuations and the acceleration of electrons by beam-generated Langmuir waves in the solar corona
• Langmuir Wave Electric Fields Induced by Electron Beams in the Heliosphere
• A comparison of weak-turbulence and PIC simulations of weak electron-beam plasma interaction

Cited by in corpus (10)

• PIC Simulation Methods for Cosmic Radiation and Plasma Instabilities
• Physical Regimes of Electrostatic Wave-Wave nonlinear interactions generated by an Electron Beam Propagating in a Background Plasma
• A Fokker-Planck Framework for Studying the Diffusion of Radio Burst Waves in the Solar Corona
• Simulation of plasma emission in magnetized plasmas
• An alternative form of the fundamental plasma emission through the coalescence of Z-mode waves with whistlers
• Verification of the standard theory of plasma emission with particle-in-cell simulations
• Electromagnetic Emission Produced by Three-wave Interactions in a Plasma with Continiously Injected Counterstreaming Electron Beams
• The aperiodic firehose instability of counter-beaming electrons in space plasmas
• Plasma emission induced by ring-distributed energetic electrons in overdense plasmas
• Single-Mode Wave Decay