Cyclotron Radiation from Magnetically Confined Plasmas

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Abstract
The cyclotron emission from a hot, completely ionized, magnetically confined plasma has been estimated by computing the absorption of an incident plane wave. The harmonics of the fundamental cyclotron frequency, which are emitted perpendicular to the magnetic field direction, were summed over and also treated individually. Because of the Doppler effect and the relativistic variation in mass the behavior of the electrons and the electromagnetic properties of the medium are functions of electron velocity. Assuming a Maxwell‐Boltzmann distribution in electron velocity, the polarization of the plasma was computed by integrating over electron velocity. Solution of Maxwell's equations yielded the absorption of an incident wave, and thus, from Kirchhoff's relation, the emission of the plasma was determined. The entire calculation was carried out nonrelativistically to first order in v2/c2, and at temperatures too low for fluctuations to play a dominant role.