Radiation phenomena in type II solar radio bursts and laboratory shock-wave experiments

The known spectrum of turbulence in and behind a collisionless shock wave is used to compute the relaxation of the electron distribution function in the presence of that turbulent spectrum. It is concluded that a nonthermal tail of the sort required to explain Type II solar burst radiation does not develop from the turbulent environment of a collisionless shock wave. Alternate mechanisms for the radiation are proposed, based on similar observations in laboratory experiments