Instantaneous wave emission model

A useful treatment of electrostatic wave emission by fast particles in a plasma is given. First, the potential due to a fast particle is expressed as a simple integration over the particle orbit; several interesting results readily follow. The potential in the wake of an accelerating particle is shown to be essentially that produced through local excitation of the plasma by the particle free-streaming about its instantaneous orbit. Application is made to one dimension, and it is shown that the wave emission and adsorption synchronize to the instantaneous velocity distribution function. Guided by these calculations, we then formulate a test particle model for computing the instantaneous wave emission by fast particles in a Vlasov plasma. This model lends itself to physical interpretation and provides a direct approach to many problems. By adopting a Fokker-Planck description for the particle dynamics, we calculate the broadening of the wave-particle resonance due to velocity diffusion and drag