Scattering of cyclotron radiation in a moving plasma

Abstract

We consider the scattering of cyclotron radiation in a plasma moving along a homogeneous magnetic field. The equation of radiation transfer in a co-moving frame is derived and two limiting cases are pointed out. In the first case of a “small” velocity gradient, the total Doppler frequency shift due to variations in the plasma velocity over the flow is much smaller than the width of the line. The second, opposite, case of a “large” velocity gradient is analogous to the Sobolev approximation in the theory of moving stellar envelopes. The solution of the transfer equation for a wind-type flow illuminated by radiation of a given intensity is obtained in the latter case, when the influence of the plasma motion on cyclotron scattering is most important. It is shown that cyclotron scattering in a moving plasma differs from the known (and qualitatively similar) problems of resonance scattering in moving stellar envelopes and cyclotron scattering in a motionless plasma permeated by an inhomogeneous magnetic field. In particular, a symmetric absorption band with residual intensity proportional to the velocity gradient appears in the spectrum of the outgoing radiation, while in these two other problems, the depth of the corresponding spectral features cannot exceed half the continuum level. Detailed qualitative analysis reveals that this difference is due to the particular form of the frequency redistribution for cyclotron scattering.