Maser based on cyclotron resonance in a decaying plasma

The features of generating electromagnetic radiation in a two-level cyclotron maser whose active medium is a decaying nonequilibrium plasma confined in a magnetic field with the mirror configuration have been examined. It has been shown that, even in the absence of a continuously acting source of nonequilibrium particles (inversion of the medium), the system can exhibit the regimes of the quasimonochromatic or pulse generation of radiation owing to a fast monotonic decrease in the instability threshold that is characteristic of the plasma decay. The theory is confirmed by the results of observations of the burst activity of the decaying pulsed-discharge plasma under the conditions of the electron cyclotron resonance in the direct axisymmetric magnetic trap.