Experimentally, one of the striking facts is that the observed duration of a typical maser pulse is on the order of ms to tens of ms despite the broad lines (∼ 25 kHz). A crude analysis of the classical Bloch-Maxwell equations may lead to the erroneous conclusion that such a large relaxation rate γ 2 necessarily implies very narrow maser bursts. However, this is not necessarily true, as can be understood from the analysis made by Bloom of radiation damping in the absence of T 1 relaxation. Indeed, analytical solutions derived there show that the duration of a single maser pulse can actually be long. This can be seen from the relation between the radiation damping rate in the presence and in the absence of transverse relaxation, γ rd and γ ∞ rd :