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Radiation Processes: 1.1 Review of Basic Definitions
Radiation Processes: 1.1 Review of Basic Definitions
Radiation Processes
In this chapter we first review some basics of radiative transfer and then in-
troduce a few common radiation mechanisms related to this course, including
blackbody, synchrotron, and inverse-Compton. Note that there are some
other radiation processes not covered by this course. For example, bremsstrahlung
happens when a charged particle being scattered by another charged particle.
Cherenkov radiation occurs when a particle moves faster than the speed of
light in a medium.
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CHAPTER 1. RADIATION PROCESSES 2
per unit time per unit solid angle per unit volume, i.e.
dE
jν ≡ (1.2)
dV dΩdt dν
and it has units of erg/cm3 /s/sr/Hz. When a beam of cross section dA travels
though a emission region for a distance ds, the volume it covers is dV =dAds.
The energy it gains is
dIν = jν ds . (1.3)
αν is in units of cm−1 . Putting Eqs. (1.3) and (1.4) together, the general form
of the radiative transfer equation is
dIν
= −αν Iν + jν . (1.5)
ds
For pure emission, αν = 0, the solution is
Z s
Iν (s) = Iν (s0 ) + jν (s0 ) ds0 . (1.6)
s0
A simple way to understand this is that the energy of having s photons each
with momentum p~ equals to spc. As photons are bosonic, s can take on any
natural number. The probability P (s) that there are exactly s photons each
with momentum p~ follows the constraint
P (s + 1)
= e−pc/kT = e−hν/kT , (1.10)
P (s)
where ν is the frequency of the photon. Consequently,
e−shν/kT
P (s) = P+∞ −s0 hν/kT = e−shν/kT (1 − e−hν/kT ) (1.11)
s0 =0 e
(Note that the 2 above reflects the fact that a photon has two possible polar-
izations.) As a result, the total expected number of photons equals
1 Z Z
hNγ i = 3
hNγ (~x)i dV d3 p~
h Z
1 Z
2
= 3 dV hν/kT
d3 p~
h e −1
Z
8πν 2
= V dν . (1.13)
c3 (ehν/kT − 1)
For a photon of momentum p~ hitting a wall and then reflected back elastically,
the magnitude of the change in momentum equals 2p cos θ = 2hν cos θ/c where
θ is the angle between p~ and the normal of the wall. The radiation pressure is
due simply to the momentum transfer to the wall per unit time per unit surface
area. That is,
!2 !
1 Z +∞ Z π/2 Z 2π 2hν cos θ 2 hν hν
Prad = 3 c cos θ sin θ dφdθd
h 0 0 0 c ehν/kT − 1 c c
Z +∞
hν
= n(ν) dν
0 3
4σ 4
= T , (1.14)
3c
where σ = 2π 5 k 4 /15c2 h3 is the Stefan’s constant.
CHAPTER 1. RADIATION PROCESSES 4
Finally, note that the energy density of a photon gas at temperature T is given
by Z +∞
4σ 4
urad = hνn(ν)dν = T . (1.15)
0 c
Hence, urad = 3Prad .
Exercise:
1. For a photon gas with volume V and temperature T , what is the internal
energy U ?
2. Given that the entropy S of the gas is related to U by dU = T dS and S
remains a constant for an adiabatic process, show that a photon gas has
an adiabatic index γ = 4/3.
Charged particles radiate when they are being accelerated. When the accelera-
tion is caused by magnetic field, the radiation is called magnetobremsstrahlung.
It has different names according to the particle energy. It is called gyro radi-
ation for non-relativistic particles, cyclotron radiation for mildly relativistic
particles, and synchrotron radiation for ultra-relativistic particles. The last
type is called curvature radiation when the magnetic field is extremely strong
(e.g., near neutron stars) such that the charged particles are forced to move
along the magnetic field lines. In this section we focus on synchrotron radiation
because it is a common process in astronomical objects.
For non-relativistic particles, the gyro frequency and angular frequency are given
by
qB sin α qB sin α
νG ≡ and ωG ≡ , (1.16)
2πmc mc
respectively, where α is the pitch angle between the velocity and the magnetic
field. For relativistic particles, the gyration frequency ωB is lower because of
relativistic mass,
ωG
ωB = . (1.17)
γ
CHAPTER 1. RADIATION PROCESSES 5
This is however not the actual spectral frequency that would be observed as we
will discuss below.
∆s = a∆θ,
where a is the gyro radius and ∆θ = 2/γ as shown in Figure 1.1. Also v = aωB
gives
∆s/v = ∆θ/ωB .
Combining the above equations and using the approximation that (1 − v/c) ≈
1/(2γ 2 ) for γ 1, one can derive
2 1 1
∆tp = 2
= 3 . (1.19)
γωB 2γ γ ωB
frequency νc = 1/∆tp and then falls off rapidly. The spectral shape is plotted
in Fig. 1.2. From a more rigorous derivation, the critical frequency has an
additional factor of 3/2
3
νc = γ 3 νB . (1.20)
2
and the full synchrotron spectrum is
√ 3
3e B sin α ν Z ∞
Psyn (ν, E) = K5/3 (η)dη, (1.21)
me c2 νc ν/νc
where K5/3 is a modified Bessel function. The critical frequency is usually taken
to be the characteristic frequency of the synchrotron radiation.
R∞
Figure 1.2: Synchrotron radiation spectrum F (x) ≡ x x K5/3 (η)dη, where
x = ν/νc .
In other words, the observed spectrum is also a power law, and the spectral
index α, which is defined as S(ν) ∝ ν −α , is related to the particle distribution
by α = (p−1)/2. Observation of the synchrotron spectrum (e.g., from supernova
remnants or AGN), can therefore reveal the underlying particle distribution and
hence the acceleration mechanism.
To calculate the total synchrotron power radiated by a single particle, one can
use the Larmor formula
2q 2 γ 6 h 2 i
P = (β̇ − (β × β̇)2 , (1.24)
3c
where β = v/c. For the non-relativistic version, just assume γ = 1 and β = 0.
For synchrotron radiation, one can derive the power to be
The index p is usually larger than 1 for most astronomical objects, such that
the local polarization fraction is usually at least 60%. The polarization angle
is always perpendicular to the magnetic field, so the magnetic field lines can be
probed by observing the polarization direction. This is how the magnetic field
around the supermassive black hole M87 was revealed.
can easily accelerate radio photons to gamma-ray photons and is very important
in explaining the gamma-ray emission observed in the Universe.
Compton scattering
We first review the derivation of Compton scattering. We use natural units
where c = 1. Assuming the initial 4-momentum of the photon and the elec-
tron are p1 = (E1 , E1 , 0, 0) and p2 = (me , 0, 0, 0), respectively. After collision,
they become p3 = (E2 , E2 cos θ, E2 sin θ, 0), and p4 , respectively, where θ is the
scattering angle. By conservation of 4-momentum,
p1 + p2 = p 3 + p4
(p1 + p2 − p3 )2 = p24
m2e + 2me E1 − 2me E2 − 2E1 E2 (1 − cos θ) = m2e
1 1 1
− = (1 − cos θ). (1.27)
E2 E1 me
The result is more commonly written in terms of wavelength λ = hc/E.
h
λ2 − λ1 = (1 − cos θ). (1.28)
me c
For unpolarized photon, the scattering cross section is given by the Klein-
Nishina formula, which is derived from quantum electrodynamics, and it
reduces to the Thomson cross section for non-relativistic particle.
Figure 1.3: Scattering geometries in the observer’s frame S and in the electron
rest frame S 0 .
Inverse-Compton scattering
We now consider the case where the electron is moving. The symbols are defined
in Figure 1.3. In the lab frame S, the electron moves in speed β = v/c in the
x-direction. In the electron’s rest frame S 0 , the problem becomes the same as
CHAPTER 1. RADIATION PROCESSES 9
the previous one. For low energy incident photons (E1 , E10 me c2 ), we rewrite
Eq. 1.27 as
E10
" #
E20
≈ E101− (1 − cos Θ) , (1.29)
me c2
cos Θ = cos θ10 cos θ20 + sin θ10 sin θ20 cos(φ01 − φ02 ), (1.30)
where φ01 and φ02 are the azimuthal angles of the scattered photon and incident
photon in the rest frame. Using Lorentz transformation (or Doppler shift), we
have
IC emission power
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) provides a wealth of low energy
photons. Wherever relativistic plasma is present, IC scattering of CMB would
make it glows in X-rays or γ-rays. Here we calculate the power of this radiation
process. Let the energy density of background radiation be urad in the observer
frame. In this frame, the background radiation is isotropic. In the electron rest
frame, the radiation becomes anisotropic for two reasons, Doppler shift and
change of photons collision rate. The Doppler effect is given by
The collision rate follows a similar argument as Doppler shift, and therefore
gives rise to the same factor. Combing the two effects, the energy density of
the radiation in electron rest frame is
Z π
21 4 1
u0rad = urad γ (1 + β cos θ) sin θdθ = urad γ 2 −
2
. (1.35)
0 2 3 4
CHAPTER 1. RADIATION PROCESSES 10
Derived from Thomson scattering, the energy loss rate of the electron is given
by !0
dE
− = σT cu0rad . (1.36)
dt
Since radiation loss is Lorentz invariant, the energy loss rate is the same in all
reference frame, i.e.
!0
dE dE 4 1
= = − σT curad γ 2 − . (1.37)
dt dt 3 4
This is the energy radiated by the electron. The electron actually absorbs some
energy from the background radiation before re-radiation, so the net energy
loss of the electron should be subtracted by the absorbed background radiation,
which is
dE 4 1
− = σT curad (γ 2 − ) − σT curad
dt 3 4
4
= σT curad (γ 2 − 1)
3
4
= σT curad β 2 γ 2 . (1.38)
3
The result also tells the average energy gain of a photon
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hE2 i ≈ γ 2 E1 . (1.39)
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