Acceleration of charged particles by fluctuating and steady electric fields in a X-type magnetic field

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

3

Scientific paper

Release of stored magnetic energy via particle acceleration is a characteristic feature of astrophysical plasmas. Magnetic reconnection is one of the mechanisms for releasing energy from magnetized plasmas. Collisionless magnetic reconnection could provide both the energy release mechanism and the particle accelerator in space plasmas. Here we studied particle acceleration when fluctuating (in-time) electric fields are superposed on an static X-type magnetic field in collisionless hot solar plasma. This system is chosen to mimic the reconnective dissipation of a linear MHD disturbance. Our results are compared to particle acceleration from constant electric field superposed on an X-type magnetic field. The constant electric field configuration represents the effects of steady state magnetic reconnection. Time evolution of ion and electron distributions are obtained by numerically integrating particle trajectories. The frequencies of the electric field represent a turbulent range of waves. Depending on the frequency and amplitude of the electric field, electrons and ions are accelerated to different degrees and have energy distributions of bimodal form consisting of a lower energy part and a high energy tail. For frequencies (ω in dimensioless units) in the range 0.5 ⩽ ω ⩽ 1.0 a substantial fraction (20%-30%) of the proton distribution is accelerated to gamma-ray producing energies. For frequencies in the range 1 ⩽ ω ⩽ 100.0 the bulk of the electron distribution is accelerated to hard X-ray producing energies. The acceleration mechanism is important for solar flares and solar noise storms but it could be applicable to all collisionless astrophysical plasmas.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Acceleration of charged particles by fluctuating and steady electric fields in a X-type magnetic field does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Acceleration of charged particles by fluctuating and steady electric fields in a X-type magnetic field, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Acceleration of charged particles by fluctuating and steady electric fields in a X-type magnetic field will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1077815

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.