Three-dimensional plasma simulations of interacting galactic-dimensioned current filaments show bursts of synchroton radiation of energy density 1·2 ×10−13 erg/cm3 which can be compared with the measured cosmic microwave background energy density of 1·5 × 10−13 erg/cm3. However, the synchrotron emission observed in the simulations is not blackbody. In this paper, we analyze the absorption of the synchrotron emission by the current filaments themselves (i.e., self-absorption) in order to investigate the thermalization of the emitted radiation. It is found that a large number of current filaments (>1031) are needed to make the radiation spectrum blackbody up to the observed measured frequency of 100 GHz. The radiation spectrum and the required number of current filaments is a strong function of the axial magnetic field in the filaments.
Thermalization of synchrotron radiation from field-aligned currents