Use an Add shader to combine a Transparent and an Emission shader.
The inclusion of the Transparent shader (set to 100% white) in this way will result in the mesh being fully transparent regardless of the intensity of the emission. ie, it won't cast a shadow and will be invisible apart from the light it emits.
@lemon kindly provided a comparison of various methods with varying emission :
From left to right...
- Emission shader only
- Transparent and Emission combined with Add shader (the one described at the start of this answer)
- Transparent mixed with Emission
- Transparent mixed with combined Emission/Transparent
1 and 3 produce shadows (and 1, obviously, turns black so is really not good). 2 and 4 don't produce shadows and are fully transparent - the only difference being that 4 fades at a different rate - mostly due to the Mix factor and the emission strength combining to affect the brightness non-linearly.
For a linearly varying emission with no shadow, number '2' seems the best solution.