Electron acceleration by magnetosonic waves in a solar coronal loop

Details Electron acceleration by magnetosonic waves in a solar coronal loop Electron acceleration by magnetosonic waves in a solar coronal loop

Jan 1990

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1990phdt.........5d&link_type=abstract

Ph.D. Thesis Colorado Univ., Boulder.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

1

Coronal Loops, Electron Acceleration, Magnetoacoustic Waves, Plasma Turbulence, Solar Corona, Solar Flares, Stochastic Processes, Coulomb Collisions, Diffusion Coefficient, Equations Of Motion, Hamiltonian Functions, Particle Trajectories, Wave Dispersion

Scientific paper

Particle acceleration is an important problem in astrophysics. During solar flares, intense electromagnetic emission and escaping high energy particles are observed. A means of accelerating these particles is required to explain the observations. The possible mechanisms are direct electric fields in magnetic reconnection regions, shocks, and stochastic acceleration by plasma turbulence. The latter mechanism is considered. The compressive magnetosonic oscillations of a solar coronal loop and their effect on electrons are investigated. The loop is modeled as a magnetized cylinder embedded in an infinite medium. A dispersion relation for the waves is derived and is solved both analytically and numerically. Characteristics of the normal modes of the system are discussed. the response of an electron to such a wave is described. The equation of motion is presented, and a Hamiltonian formulation is introduced. A physical explanation of the acceleration mechanism is provided. The behavior of test particles in an oscillating coronal loop by numerically integrating the equation of motion using the guiding center approximation. Individual particle trajectories are chaotic, and examples of this phenomenon are shown. The evolution of large samples of test electrons is computed. The waves can resonate with near-thermal electrons, and whether or not such particles can be accelerated out of the thermal pool by this mechanism is investigated. The dependence of the acceleration on wave strength and wave spectral shape, and the effect of pitch angle scattering and Coulomb collisions, are considered. Comparisons are made with analytic treatments of similar problems. Reasonable agreement with analytical solutions was found.

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