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A laboratory experiment to investigate auroral kilometric radiation emission mechanisms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2005

D.C. SPEIRS ,
I. VORGUL ,
K. RONALD ,
R. BINGHAM ,
R.A. CAIRNS ,
A.D.R. PHELPS ,
B.J. KELLETT ,
A.W. CROSS ,
C.G. WHYTE  and
C. ROBERTSON
D.C. SPEIRS
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK
I. VORGUL
Affiliation:
School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9SS, UK
K. RONALD
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK
R. BINGHAM
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, UK
R.A. CAIRNS
Affiliation:
School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9SS, UK
A.D.R. PHELPS
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK
B.J. KELLETT
Affiliation:
CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, UK
A.W. CROSS
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK
C.G. WHYTE
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK
C. ROBERTSON
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK
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Abstract

If an initially mainly rectilinear electron beam is subject to significant magnetic compression, the conservation of the magnetic moment results in the ultimate formation of a horseshoe distribution in phase space. A similar situation occurs where particles are accelerated into the auroral region of the Earth's magnetic dipole. Such a distribution has been shown to be unstable to a cyclotron resonance maser type of instability and it has been postulated that this may be the mechanism required to explain the production in these regions of auroral kilometric radiation (AKR) and also possibly radiation from other astrophysical objects such as stars with a suitable magnetic field configuration. In this paper we describe a laboratory experiment to investigate the evolution of an electron beam subject to a magnetic compression of up to a factor of 30.

Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 71 , Issue 5 , October 2005 , pp. 665 - 674
Copyright
2005 Cambridge University Press

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