Shock Surfing vs. Shock Drift

Physics – Plasma Physics

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

We numerically investigate the pre-injection mechanism by which pickup ions approaching quasi-perpendicular astrophysical shocks may be accelerated above the threshold velocity required to begin diffusive shock acceleration. By analyzing particle trajectories we demonstrate the existence of two distinct acceleration mechanisms, shock drift and shock surfing, which operate on disjoint subsets of the pickup ion population. We show that threshold velocities can only be attained by these processes, and quantitatively compare the overall and relative effectiveness of each mechanism as a function of shock Mach number, magnetic field orientation and pickup ion mass. We further demonstrate the effect of shock ramp width on these mechanisms and show that shock surfing becomes predominant at a smaller shock width, producing ion energies greater than the injection threshold by at least an order of magnitude.

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