The steady-state theory of inverse Compton scattering in a finite medium of thermal electrons is developed. It is shown that there is an approximate separation of the spatial and energy transport problems. For an initial soft photon input the energy transport portion is solved using a combination of the central limit theorem and the saturated Wien spectrum. The spatial transport portion is reduced to the study of the distribution of n-times scattered intensities. For the case of reflection of external photons, an n to the -3/2 law is shown to represent asymptotically the probabilities of emergence after n scatterings. The emergent spectrum is a quasi-power law, with a slope that depends only weakly on plasma parameters. In particular, the effects of an inhomogeneous temperature distribution on the reflected spectrum are shown to be of minor importance. The flux due to internally generated photons is also derived and is compared with that due to reflection.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Lightman et al. (1980) studied this question.