Numerical simulations of bursty radio emissions from planetary magnetospheres

One-dimensional electromagnetic particle simulations are used to investigate the characteristics of radiation from electron beams with a large temperature anisotropy, in order to identify the origin of the smooth and bursty radio emissions from Uranus and Neptune observed by the Voyager spacecraft. It is shown that these electron beams, which would typically originate from the sporadic or impulsive injections of energetic electrons, can generate electromagnetic radiation which should be able to escape into the solar wind despite the growth of the electrostatic instability. The amount of radiation with frequencies above the local x mode cutoff increases with the beam speed. It is also proposed that some of the radiation generated below the local x mode cutoff may also be able to escape the plasma and be detected remotely via mode conversion between regions where field-aligned currents produce local perturbations in the magnetic field.