Partial reconstruction of the initial conditions for streams of energetic electrons associated with a solar type III burst

A simple test of the applicability of quasilinear theory is presented to be applied to measured velocity distributions of energetic electrons associated with solar type III bursts or similar particle streams: it consists in taking the time integral of these distributions after removing the background. If quasilinear diffusion of weak plasma turbulence applies to the particle dynamics and if all other losses are neglected, the time integral of the distributions injected at the source of the streaming particles is recovered. In particular, if these distributions are approximated by hot Maxwellian ones, direct estimates of the initial temperatures are retrieved. Further analysis might even permit an experimental evaluation of the relative effects of collision and scattering losses.