Radiation from a strongly turbulent plasma: Application to electron beam-excited solar emissions

Abstract

The emission of radiation at the plasma frequency and at twice the plasma frequency from beam-excited strong Langmuir turbulence, for the case of low-density high-velocity warm beams, is considered. Under these conditions, Langmuir wave packets undergo (direct) collapse in a time short compared with one e folding of a beam mode. The wave packet energy density threshold for collapse depends only on the beam temperature and velocity, not on the beam density. Upper and lower limits on the volume emissivity for harmonic emission from these collapsing wave packets are found. Within most of this range, the emissivity is large enough to account for observations of second harmonic radiation during type III solar radio wave bursts. The radiation at the fundamental is many orders of magnitude larger than predicted by weak turbulence theory.