Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-prelims-and-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/s19/2/a/solution

For an ultrarelativistic electron of Lorentz factor , the synchrotron critical frequency gives . Thus, using the supplied constants,
The angle-integrated spectral power per unit photon energy is proportional to , with . It peaks at , so
This is a power spectrum per linear energy interval; power per logarithmic interval and photon-count spectra have different peaks. The magnetic rigidity condition is , with , giving
The critical energy sets a broad spectral scale, not a maximum allowed photon energy.[ref]

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