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Effect of bremsstrahlung radiation emission on fast electrons in plasmas (1604.03331v1)
Published 12 Apr 2016 in physics.plasm-ph
Abstract: Bremsstrahlung radiation emission is an important energy loss mechanism for energetic electrons in plasmas. In this paper we investigate the effect of spontaneous bremsstrahlung emission on the momentum-space structure of the electron distribution, fully accounting for the emission of finite-energy photons. We find that electrons accelerated by electric fields can reach significantly higher energies than what is expected from energy-loss considerations. Furthermore, we show that the emission of soft photons can contribute significantly to the dynamics of electrons with an anisotropic distribution.